Daughter of the Serpentine

by E. E. Knight

  “I’m not that ill, just . . . I haven’t played in a while. Rusty.”

  “Then shall we have another game?”

  He cracked his knuckles. “With pleasure, now that I know you are a challenge.”

  “Yes, sir. I’d enjoy a challenge after that first match.”

  He recovered his destroyed pieces and placed the screen between them. He took his time setting up his array. “It’s my turn for first move.”

  He went again with two captains and one fortress. Ileth did three captains this time, which favored her normal aggressive, slashing style. Though she had some initial success, managing to take his fortress, it turned into a grinding game where her dragon couldn’t be used effectively because there were few open areas for it to operate, as he had spread his array and she had difficulty getting a solid punch formed against it.

  “You know the social newssheet in Sammerdam,” he said conversationally. “They’re dreadfully careless. They were so slow in announcing Vor Rapp’s promotion to full dragoneer that it appeared in the same issue as the announcement of his death. His poor family.”

  If it was an attempt to throw Ileth off her game, assuming she had an emotional connection to him that led her to choose him as Aurue’s dragoneer, it didn’t work. But it did bring up the memory of his headless body lying in the torn soil of the Headlands landing field. Ileth struck back on the board with her dragon, taking his war machine, and promptly lost it when the dragon was surrounded and destroyed. She didn’t recover from the loss.

  “Coup,” he said, taking her last captain. To his credit, there was no triumph in his voice. He might have been pointing out that her bootlace was untied.

  “Two out of three?” Ileth said, replacing the screen.

  This time she tried his two-captains-and-one-fortress mix, and her favorite array, with the dragon forward and next to her war machine.

  They settled on flipping a fig for first move. Ileth lost.

  This one was more a brawl than an intellectual duel. Ileth tried to detach and look objectively at the game, but Traskeer seemed intent on hammering her in his quick, methodical fashion. He could move quickly and not make mistakes. His quick certainty unnerved her.

  “I had to . . . to observe the campaign for Governor Raal,” Ileth said, conversationally, as she chose her next move. “I was able to attend every meeting. The overall plan was very like the one from Annis Heem Strath I put in my commission.” Ileth moved a captain and infantry together, as his dragon was within a distance to counterattack.

  “Yes, I suppose it was,” he said, moving his dragon sideways instead of forward. Oh well, her war machine next to the fortress would get another chance, hopefully.

  “The one variation was those ‘turtle’ craft,” Ileth said.

  “Yes, something our tinkers have been working on since that interesting maneuver the Galantines used to assault the Scab.”

  “Clever. A floating fortress.”

  Traskeer stared at the area around his fortress. He was down a captain, and he couldn’t afford to lose it.

  “Still,” Ileth continued, “it was interesting to me that you were described in that same newssheet you mentioned as the author of the plan.”

  “I was.”

  “Not Annis Heem Strath,” Ileth said, shifting her dragon around his right flank.

  “I did mention her plan in my written report to the Assembly . . . and that you did staff work. I’m not unfair. I acknowledged your contribution.”

  “Could I read the plan you submitted to the Assembly? I’d like to learn how it improved on Heem Strath’s.”

  “Those papers were marked ‘Most Secret’ for obvious reasons.” His hand shook a little as he moved his war machine to cover Ileth’s dragon.

  “I suppose my commission no longer exists.” Her dragon came forward again and took an infantry piece, forcing him to choose between surrounding it and potentially losing his war machine.

  He chose to retreat his war machine next to his remaining captain. “Yes, as a precaution I burned it, along with my initial notes and draft. Can’t have that sort of thing lying about with an operation so dependent on surprise.”

  “You should have warned me there was such need of secrecy, sir. My hand is very bad. My first draft is still in the Serpentine. You only burned the fair copy. The draft really should have been destroyed too.” Her dragon gobbled more infantry. He had very little left.

  “My innards are in an uproar, Ileth; you must excuse me.” He rushed out of the room, giving Ileth a chance to admire the paintwork on his coup set up close. It must have been painted using very small brushes and a magnifying glass. Traskeer had a steady hand and an eye for detail. Even his use of color was striking; every piece had one small bit of boldly colored detail.

  Traskeer returned. “We may have to suspend this match, Ileth. I will be—ahem—in and out of my office tonight, I fear.” He looked at the board. “Did you change a piece’s position?”

  “I admired them. I was careful to put them back on the right cell.” Had she been careful? She looked at the infantryman and was suddenly doubtful. It had been inadvertent, but would he think that?

  “Sir, p-perhaps you are right: that infantryman. He w-was just ahead of your captain. I was careless.”

  “So was I,” Traskeer said. “We share more than one fault.”

  “We do?”

  “We both give too much rein to our ambition,” Traskeer said.

  “My ambition has never been to be anything other than the best dragoneer I can be.”

  His shoulders sagged, a rare giveaway. “You should know it doesn’t work that way. Credit me with some concern for the traditions here. They seem slow to someone your age, but they work. The Serpentine is a great war machine, full of gears and triggers and tension points. You aren’t ready. You aren’t even ready to be a wingman. Even if you have me draped over the proverbial barrel, I can’t just promote you to dragoneer, Ileth. I don’t have the power.”

  “I suspect you do have it in your power to put me in the Guards.”

  “The Guards?”

  “I’d like to indulge my masculine aspect, sir. I have Dun Klaff’s hat and it looks very smart on me.”

  “If I walk into Charge Deklamp’s office and say, ‘I’m putting Ileth in the Guards because she has a hat,’ he’ll send me for six months’ rest in an asylum.”

  “Sir, you m-might try ‘I’m putting Ileth in the Guards as her rew-reward for bringing my attention to Annis Heem Strath’s excellent plan.’ It’s not just ambition. I need a place to sleep. I’ve lost my bed in the Dancers’ Quarter.”

  “You? Sleep surrounded by boys? The Sanitary Commission would go mad.”

  “Oh, I’m sure . . . sure I can figure out something to preserve the niceties, sir.”

  “Speaking of niceties,” Traskeer said, looking pained. His stomach gave an audible gurgle.

  “I’ll leave you. Thank you for the lesson in coup, sir.”

  “You’re a formidable player, Ileth. I think you’re right: you would look very smart in one of those hats. I look forward to seeing it on you for the next match,” he said, moving swiftly out the door.

  * * *

  —

  Ileth returned to the Dancers’ Quarter to find preparations for the parade in Sammerdam occupying the whole troupe. So they were to travel again. Which was just as well, she’d lost her bed in the Dancers’ Quarter to a promising girl from the ’67 draft. Ottavia put her, temporarily, on a cushion near the warmth of that little stove (Ottavia took a second look at her hair and said something about easily sneaking her into one of the men’s dormitories in the walls).

  A grand review was being organized in Sammerdam. News had already spread across the Serpentine, and the fortress was hard at work polishing dragon scale in preparation for the review. Even the cooks and reclusiv
e tinkers were put to work with cloths shining up the dragons who’d been on the campaign.

  Ottavia also handed her a letter that had been waiting for her on her desk. The letter was in a good, clear masculine hand from Taskmaster Henn and sealed with wax using the wheel sigil of the Auxiliaries. That was a curiosity; she’d barely seen the Taskmaster the whole campaign. Ileth tore it open as soon as she could find privacy and good light to read.

  Ileth,

  Gandy, your friend from the Headlands, writes you here. I am sorry it is just marked as originating from the Stavanzer Post Station, but I did not want to mail it from the village for Comity Hears All, so I entrusted it with our good friend Taskmaster Henn, who knows you and believes that you deserve some measure of my cousin’s regard. I trust this letter catches up to you at the Serpentine and finds you well.

  I heard that my aunt treated you most unfairly and I apologize for her words and actions though she still would not wish me to. Astler is dead in this family full of death, and I am in grief as well but cannot blame you. I believe you grieve too. I asked my mother to let me read Astler’s letter to you and she went to Comity, who relented at last, but she watched me every moment I read it and immediately had me hand it back, elsewise I would have copied it word for word for you.

  This is my memory of what he wrote.

  He said his affection for you was strong, so strong at times he felt overwhelmed by it, but that you were following a fate that would not let you align yourself to him without breaking your fate and perhaps your heart. He thought your devotion to the dragons and the Serpentine beautiful, and as you knew my cousin you must also know that expression encompassed much more than a young man’s praise of his heart’s desire. My cousin could no more destroy something beautiful than he could fly by beating his arms. It was not in his character. But I get away from the content of his letter by adding my own thoughts.

  He joined with the militia on this campaign because he weighed your words about all of us in the north wishing to be rid of the depredations of the pirates. As he had some of this at school and trained with the militia as a condition of his attendance, he was admitted to the campaign and allowed to take a man’s part. This made him proud and I think he said happy. Or perhaps he said “be happy for me.”

  I am very sorry you do not have his letter to keep. One day it should come to me in the natural order of things if my life is vouchsafed, and then it will be sent on to you without delay and I hope it will still mean something to you even if we both have gray (or our fates allow, white) hair on our heads.

  You must write to me care of Taskmaster Henn, who will be our secret postal commissioner, and tell me of you and your dragons. He expects to be in the Headlands for a year or more at least in order to see to the restoration and improvement of the Old Post. May the dragons never depart and their watch never fail (and give you an excuse to return! Bring one of the handsomer young dragoneers, if you can persuade one to visit a lonely northern girl with you in a house full of widowed women). I shall never forget the night we escaped the Rari!

  As this letter is a secret and Comity may discover me at any moment, I must close it here. I am sure you think me a very silly girl to write the above with her cousin fresh in his grave, but I have gone a bit mad like grieving Dannsa in that play about the dead prince.

  Your friend,

  G. A.

  Ileth reread it and then sealed it back in the envelope by warming the wax seal with her reading candle. She wished she had a way to repay Gandy, assuming the introduction to a handsome dragoneer was a joke. Though maybe it would do Gandy good to lose herself in a romance. But she wondered exactly what Astler had been thinking. If only she could read his exact words, instead of Gandy’s memory of one hurried reading. The idea that any boy—well, young man—would be so impressed that he’d want to emulate her took some getting used to.

  She tried to imagine circumstances where she would be admitted to Sag House again. Probably not until the death of Comity, if ever. Gandy would have to visit her if duty called her to the Old Post—or whatever they were going to rename it once it reopened.

  It was a solace, a small solace, that Gandy didn’t blame her for Astler’s death. Whether Ileth didn’t blame herself was another question.

  The fact hardly had time to sink in before Ottavia called her troupe together. The dragon-dancers would all join in the parade, mostly dancing, with the newer, less experienced dancers carrying baskets of flower petals and throwing handfuls of them about to fall on the dragons as they walked down the Archway. When they weren’t rehearsing, they were working on their costumes, as dancing sheaths wouldn’t do for Sammerdam. Even in a victory parade.

  What Ottavia had in mind for costumes was a sort of wrap that went over the shoulders, reminiscent of a ship’s sail, belted with cording that crossed the dancer’s chest and tied at the waist in classical Hypatian fashion, with a tight dancing sheath beneath in whatever shade best matched the dancer’s skin tone. Ottavia had “run out the bank” for buying costuming materials, having begged Shrentine to fly her down to Tyrenna to purchase material and cording and having them flown up from Tyrenna. She had Santeel model her prototype. Just standing there it had nice lines; Ileth couldn’t wait to wear it. The shoulders and upper bust were bare or covered in cording, depending on who was opining, the girl who would wear it or her mother, and as Santeel moved it seemed very daring and provocative.

  “The Charge is going to get angry letters or a visit from the Committee,” Ileth predicted.

  Ileth was posted with the petal throwers.

  “Well, Ileth, you’ve been away for so many months. I’m afraid you are out of practice. There’s no reason you can’t do angle lifts and back-outs and full turns as you throw your petals, though. If only it were a month later!”

  There were three reasons for the timing, according to Dun Huss, who, having been Garamoff’s chief of staff, now had to work himself ragged at the few seams that weren’t already frayed by the campaign arranging the victory review. First, news had just reached the city and excitement was at its peak. The people were in the mood to celebrate. Ileth thought it odd that the review was taking place in Sammerdam instead of, say, Stavanzer, because the north had done most of the suffering from the difficulties with the Rari.

  Second, new ambassadors from both the Galantine Baronies and Daphia had arrived. The Daphine dignitary was of particular interest, as he was a minister plenipotentiary, whatever that was, who would work out how the Rari ports would be supervised to ensure no return of pirate vessels and that the Rari that remained were limiting themselves to peaceful use of the straits that connected Pine Bay with the Inland Ocean. It never hurt to remind the kingdoms surrounding the Republic that there were battle-hardened dragons just a short flight away from their borders who’d just carried out a campaign of singular note for its brevity and ferocity.

  And third, and perhaps most important in his opinion, the Exchange and Bankers’ Row would soon close for the traditional Six Weeks’ Suspension at the end of summer, and would be setting up policies to keep businesses going while no shares were being bought or sold and changes in the percents made. On these matters Ileth also had to confess ignorance, but apparently how things were set up at the summer break could sometimes carry over through the Six Weeks’ Suspension through the fall and on into the new year. Confidence in the Republic’s future could cause the financial crisis to subside, and there were shipbuilders and warehousers looking to expand in the north needing capital for improvements to her roads and canals.

  As preparations for the parade grew to a climax, Ileth found herself back with Horse Lot learning to load pack horses and mules for the trip. After vacillating for a day, she told Quith about Astler.

  “I have no happy news either,” Quith said, and commenced her usual mooning about Pasfa Sleng.

  The Serpentine sent some of its complement overlan
d for the parade in the form of a group of novices and apprentices to help tend the dragons and participate in the parade. Ileth had the impression that the novices were mostly important Names and the apprentices those who could easily “be spared” for the festivities. Charge Deklamp gave a speech in the Great Hall to those who would remain behind, with him, that they were to act as if those who went to Sammerdam were lost in a great battle and it fell to them to carry on the Serpentine’s traditions without them and care for the remaining dragons. They would hold their own victory feast and throw open the gates to Vyenn. She saw fewer downcast faces after that.

  As the Horse passed down the line of departing dragons and riders, someone did ask him (Ileth was later told) why he wasn’t going to participate in the parade. He smiled and said, “I’ve done my ride. You young people enjoy yours.”

  Of “her dragoneers” Amrits and Dun Huss would be in the parade, but the Borderlander skipped it. “Crowds make me itch,” he said, repeating the sentiments of his Stavanzer farewell to her.

  “That’s just your fleas trying to jump off and move to a juicier accommodation,” Amrits said.

  Ileth found satisfaction in seeing Sifler say good-bye to Eswit. She didn’t hear what was said, they were too far away and she had no business taking them near her, but he looked put-together for once and he’d learned the knack of walking with a sword so he didn’t trip himself or bang an admiring young woman in the shins. The only thing that disturbed her was the sight of an overlarge golden ring on his finger. It seemed familiar. But he took a faster route to Sammerdam, being with the dragons, and she didn’t have an opportunity to examine it closely.

  Ileth alternately walked and rode with her fellow dancers in a slow-moving wain. A single young dragon led the procession, the copper Cunescious who had watched Ileth take her oath three summers ago, so that everyone might have a dragon to cheer as they passed through villages and small towns. The summer weather was fine and they were rained on just enough to refresh themselves and wash off the dust. In the only sizable town on the road to Sammerdam before they reached the coastal flats, the boys and men gallantly slept in barns and stables so the girls and women could have beds.