The Tropic of Serpents: A Memoir by Lady Trent (A Natural History of Dragons)

by Marie Brennan

  I nearly jumped out of my skin when he said, “The gift is good. There will be no dam.”

  Muscles I had not even known were tight suddenly relaxed. Then my traitor mouth betrayed me, saying, “Are you certain? Sir Adam, I fear, will be angry—”

  Ankumata’s eyes gleamed with what I think was suppressed amusement. “Your country has promised assistance in defending Bayembe. I accept the assistance you have provided on their behalf.”

  That was undoubtedly not the wording in the treaty—but if he thought he could get away with that argument, who was I to disagree? I asked, “Is that why you sent me to the swamp, instead of one of your own? Because you could call it Scirling aid? No, that cannot be it. I thought at the time that you would not mind as much if we died. Later, it occurred to me that you could more easily disavow our actions if we caused trouble. But if that were the case, you could have sent Velloin. Or both of us together, but I am sure someone has informed you of how I detest the man. I cannot think why you did not send him instead, before me, unless it is because I am Scirling and he is not.”

  This is why I have declined all offers of diplomatic postings. As I have grown older (and in theory more sedate), various government officials have thought to take advantage of my experience and international connections by sending me as an ambassador to one place or another. But I have at all ages been too prone to speaking my mind, and not always judicious enough in who I speak it to.

  The oba of Bayembe, however, chose not to punish me for my frankness. He said, “If Velloin were a woman, he would not have gone into the agban.”

  I did not immediately parse his meaning. I looked to Galinke, who smiled; I thought of the days she and I had spent in conversation there. My seclusion had been less than entirely willing … but I had gone, rather than risk offense to my hosts, which might have jeopardized my ultimate purpose.

  Velloin would not have bent to such concerns.

  Understand: this is not the same thing as saying I was perfectly respectful of Yembe traditions, or Moulish ones, either. Romantics of various sorts over the years have painted me as a kind of human chameleon, adapting without difficulty or reservation to my social environment; this is twaddle. (Flattering twaddle, but twaddle all the same.) As I indicated during my account of the witchcraft ritual, my driving concern has always been my research. In pursuit of that, however, I have generally believed that it is more to my advantage to cooperate with those around me than to ignore them. Sometimes this has been a nuisance, and on occasion an outright mistake, but overall this philosophy has served me well.

  And on this occasion, it explained why my solution to the problem had appealed to Ankumata.

  I curtseyed again and said, “Thank you, chele.” Then one final thought occurred to me. “If—if I may ask one more thing—”

  He made an exaggerated show of wariness, but gestured for me to continue.

  “Have you ever killed anything? Not flies and such, but animals or humans.”

  His hand had come to rest again on the iron of his braces. They made him strong in some ways, including a few that healthy legs would not have, but they could not do everything. Ankumata said, “I am no hunter.”

  I nodded. “Only those who have never killed may do the work that will bring swamp-wyrm eggs to you. There are other requirements as well, which you cannot fulfill … but I think it would please the Moulish to know that they are giving their dragons to a man who is in that sense pure. You may wish to find others who have not killed and recruit them to assist.” My gaze flickered briefly to Galinke. “Women as well as men.”

  This audience had used up more than enough of the oba’s time. He dismissed me with a wave of his feather fan. “I will read your research notes before you depart.”

  None of the secrets Yeyuama had shared with me were written down, so agreeing was easy enough. “I will see to it that you have copies of what is printed afterward as well,” I promised, and retreated from his presence with a sense of profound relief.

  * * *

  The natural effects of the agreement to transplant swamp-wyrm eggs into the border rivers of Bayembe did not become fully apparent for a number of years after my departure, and so I will not address them here; that is a matter for later volumes.

  The political effects, however, played out more rapidly, as I found myself accused of treason against the Scirling crown.

  These accusations came in three distinct waves. The first was immediate, following on the rumours that I had brought an army to the walls of Point Miriam and threatened the soldiers there. That, I think, prepared the soil for the later rumours; it made for a good story, and a pleasingly scandalous counter-narrative to the tale of Isabella Camherst, savior of Nsebu.

  The second wave was a product of my argument with Sir Adam and subsequent house arrest. He had the good sense not to share the specifics of our conversation, but a great many people knew I had done something dreadful enough to warrant being locked up, and later marched under armed guard to see the oba. When that selfsame oba intervened to have me released, whispers began to fly that my loyalties lay not with my own homeland, but with our colonial ally. No one could say for certain what action I had taken on their behalf—that awaited the third wave of accusations—but rumour supplied any number of scurrilous possibilities.

  As for the third wave, it did not take shape immediately. Ankumata was too experienced a politician to tell Sir Adam of his arrangement with the Moulish before he had to; I was safely back in Scirland by the time that matter came to light. (And a good thing, too, or I might never have escaped with my life.) But eventually it became known that there had been plans for a dam, and that Bayembe had backed out of those plans, in favor of some arrangement with the Moulish. This damaged the trade agreements with Scirland, which led to other foreign parties taking an interest in Bayembe, and ultimately weakened our influence in that country. I would not say this damaged Scirland, in the sense of inflicting harm upon my own nation; but it robbed us of a profit we might otherwise have had. This was more than enough for some to declare me a traitor to my own people.

  All of this was inadvertent on my own part—but it does little good to cry, “I only wanted to study dragons!” Science is not separate from politics. As much as I would like it to be a pure thing, existing only in some intellectual realm unsullied by human struggle, it will always be entangled with the world we live in.

  (That is a lie, though I will leave it in. Not the entanglement—that much is true—but the notion that I would like it to be otherwise. If science were only some abstract thing, without connection to our lives, it would be both useless and boring. But there have been times when I wished that I might snip a few of the threads tying it to other matters, so they would stop tripping me as I went.)

  The effect of these accusations, along with others acquired during the expedition (such as the rumours of intimacy with Tom), was to drive all interest in my scientific discoveries out of the public mind in both Bayembe and Scirland. While my companions and I recuperated from our trials—in Nsebu, for Sir Adam had refused to allow us to return to Atuyem, even after my house arrest ended—we endured endless questions, not one of which had to do with natural history. On Tom’s advice, I answered as few of those as my indiscretion and the status of my inquirer would allow. The political negotiations played out with a minimum of our involvement, which was as I preferred; I devoted myself instead to making better notes of my observations in Mouleen, since swamp conditions had made proper efforts there impossible.

  It was a peculiar time. If I had felt odd briefly leaving the Green Hell for the savannah during our trek to the Great Cataract, how much stranger was it to sit on a chair in a Scirling-style house, to sleep in a bed, to wear skirts once again? The air felt positively cool and dry after the oppressive humidity of the swamp, and the sky seemed impossibly huge. Things that had become routine to me these past months reasserted themselves as unthinkable: had I truly eaten insects? Conversely, things which had once
been shocking were no longer so. When every woman one has seen for half a year, only Natalie excepted, goes about wearing nothing more than a loincloth, the Gabborid custom of leaving one breast bare seems positively modest.

  Over it all hung the certainty that we would not be in Eriga for much longer. “They’ll drag us home,” Tom predicted, shortly after we were reunited. “The soldiers were talking on the way here; they said the government might recall all civilians from Nsebu, if the Ikwunde continue to press. Except for the trading companies, of course. And now, with what you’ve done…” He shook his head, bemused. “There will have to be an inquiry.”

  Natalie laughed. The recent surprises seemed to have done her in; her manner was that of a woman who had washed her hands of everything, and now was merely waiting to see what would happen next. She said, “Well, I’ve ruined myself thoroughly enough to avoid marriage, and if I am very stone-headed I may yet avoid the madhouse. I suppose I am ready to go home.”

  I was not. Now that I knew fangfish were immature swamp-wyrms, I wanted to study their life cycle in greater detail, perhaps get an estimate for what percentage survived that infantile stage and grew to adulthood. I wanted to see the seasonal mating of the swamp-wyrms in the lake below the Great Cataract; I wanted to watch the great queen dragons lay their eggs, and distribute them through the forest alongside Yeyuama and the others. I wanted to document how the hatchlings fared in the river environment of Bayembe (and that was before I knew what would happen after their transplantation).

  But I have never once left the site of an expedition feeling that I have learned everything, answered every question there is to ask. My curiosity always finds new directions. Despite that, I was honestly not certain I could face the Green Hell again—not so soon. Like a man undertaking strenuous labor, I had thought myself fit enough while I was still working, but now that I had stopped, a profound weariness set in, as much psychological as physical. A mattress might feel strange beneath my back at night, but I was not eager to trade it for a damp pallet again.

  Regardless, the choice was not ours to make. Tom was right: before the month was out, Sir Adam informed us that we were to return to Scirland. “Are our visas revoked?” I asked.

  I meant the question politely enough, but Sir Adam was not inclined to read anything I said in a charitable light. He said, “They will be, if that’s what it takes to get rid of you.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Tom hastened to assure him, and we left his office.

  We did obtain permission to return to Atuyem—under escort, of course—so that we might make our farewells there. I had already parted from Yeyuama two weeks before; the Moulish did not tarry long in Point Miriam after handing over the Labane. I sent gifts with him, as lavish as I could arrange: more iron knives, foodstuffs not found in the swamp, anything I thought the Moulish might find of use. They wear little jewelry, but I sent a carved wooden pendant for Akinimanbi, a charm made in Bayembe to protect infants from sickness. I had no belief in its supernatural efficacy, nor would Akinimanbi necessarily think much of an item that invoked a Yembe god, but it was the best gesture I could think of to express my gratitude for her aid and forbearance.

  In Atuyem, I met with Galinke and clasped her hands. “Despite all the trouble and confusion that has come of it,” I said, “I am still more grateful than I can say that you recommended me to your brother. I only wish there were something equally vital I might do for you in return.”

  She smiled broadly. “In a way, you have. The more secure Bayembe is, the less likely it is that I will be sent to the mansa as his wife.”

  I had not forgotten our early political discussions in the agban, which had played no small role in affecting my decisions. “Then I am glad to have been of service,” I said.

  Galinke was not the only one who benefited from our expedition. Faj Rawango had, on account of his ancestry, been appointed to a prominent role in the new contact with Mouleen. And of course Ankumata had gotten what he desired, though he did not bid us farewell in person.

  When people speak of the tragedies in my life, they ordinarily mean the deaths: not only Jacob, but all those around me who have perished, whether in direct consequence of danger or simple misfortune and the passage of time after our friendship has formed. At times, though, I think these partings should be accounted as highly, if only in the ledger of my own sorrow. Akinimanbi did not die on a Labane spear, but I never saw her again after leaving for the Great Cataract; in that sense I lost her as thoroughly as if she had died. So it was with Yeyuama as well. I only saw Faj Rawango once more, years later, and although Galinke corresponded with me, we could not be friends the way we might have been had we dwelt in the same land. So it has been, again and again throughout my life, as I form connections with people and then lose them to distance and time. I mourn those losses, even when I know my erstwhile friends are safe and happy among their own kin.

  But the only way for me to avoid such losses would be to stay home, to never journey beyond the range of easy visitation. As my life will attest, that is not a measure I am willing to take; nor would I forgo the pleasures of my transient friendships if I could.

  So we made our farewells, packed our things, and boarded a steamship in the harbor of Nsebu. Much browner, thinner, and more worn than we had been when we arrived, we made our way back to Scirland.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Reactions at home—A stranger to me—Conversations and apologies—No longer a recluse—The thief—A small bar—The cost of the world

  There was indeed an inquiry, and a flood of articles in the news-sheets, and gossipmongers swirling in the social waters like so many hungry fangfish.

  That I survived these things at all owes a great deal to Lord Hilford, who was my tireless champion in venues ranging from Society to the Synedrion. He defended me against Sir Adam’s report, accusations of fornication, and his own son (who had not forgiven me in the least for absconding with his daughter). Natalie was disowned, and took up residence with me as my permanent companion.

  She proved surprisingly able with Jacob, once she was a resident of my house rather than a visitor to it. “I would not want one of my own, I think,” she said with a laugh, “but I do not mind borrowing yours for brief spans of time.”

  My son. Now three years old, he had grown tremendously in my absence; I might not have recognized him, had his resemblance to his father not become even stronger. He, I think, barely recognized me at all, shrinking into Mrs. Hunstin’s skirts when I crouched down and held out my arms for him to come.

  His diffidence struck me like a blow. It was not only his youth that made him forget me, or the fact that I had been absent for a third of his short life; it was the distance between us before that. I was, I thought wryly, as remote a figure in his world as a queen dragon was to a fangfish, dwelling far away in the clean, turbulent waters of the lake. (Of course I thought of it in those terms. My head was full of plans for the book I would publish, which I had been using as a distraction from the prospect of a Synedrion hearing. And I had begun to think about motherhood as a naturalist might—which made it much more interesting to me.)

  The witchcraft ritual had purged some of the tension and pain from my thoughts, though, and on the journey home I had realized that I was eager to see my son once more. I vowed, as Mrs. Hunstin coaxed him toward me, that I would find some means of improving matters between us. I still had no desire to be the sort of mother society expected me to be; but surely I could be some kind of mother to him, in my particular way, to a greater extent than before.

  My own mother … I will not go into detail regarding the conversation between us, save to say that “conversation” is an exceedingly polite name to give it. She had heard the rumours about Tom Wilker, and drawn very erroneous conclusions from them, not the least of which was the notion that I had only gone to Eriga for his sake. I took great exception to her readiness to condemn me, and after that I no longer had to ignore her letters, for she wrote me none.
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  Andrew I apologized to for the loss of the penknife he had given me when we were children. He listened to the tale of its demise with all the wide-eyed excitement of the eight-year-old boy he had been, and afterward clapped me on the back as if I were a man. “It fell in a noble cause,” he said solemnly, and then demanded to know whether Erigan women really went bare-breasted.

  I had expected to return to my life as a recluse, albeit for different reasons than before. I imagined myself rising each morning to write papers on our observations, Tom and I having agreed to bombard the Philosophers’ Colloquium and other scholarly bodies with material until they were forced to acknowledge our existence and our merit. We had plans for another book as well, which ultimately turned into two: Dragon Breeds of the Bayembe Region and Dragon Breeds of Mouleen.

  But I had not accounted for my celebrity, which brought a flood of mail and even some curiosity-seekers to my house in Pasterway. Natalie dealt with these, but I could not (and did not) refuse all invitations to events and house parties; if I wanted the Colloquium to acknowledge me as a scholar, it was to my benefit to present myself as such in public. (This also lent strength to my assertions that any scandals, real or imagined, associated with my time in Eriga were secondary at best to my true purpose there.) I set to work making a place for myself in Society, even if it was not the place Society intended for me.

  And, one Athemer morning in early Pluvis, I sat down in Kemble’s parlour with Tom, Natalie, Lord Hilford, and Frederick Kemble himself, to discuss the matter of dragonbone.

  “It was Canlan,” Lord Hilford said. “I have no proof of it—nothing I could take to a court, not with a marquess as the defendant—but I’m certain he is the one behind the break-in. The man I set to investigating wrote to me recently, reporting that Canlan received a very large sum of money from a company in Va Hing. A new outfit, one whose members include several chemists and industrialists.”