by Jo Walton
The speaking room was carved from the same dark natural rock as the rest of the establishment. It was not embellished with lighter pebbles as was the fashion in Irieth, for the owners of the establishment had never heard of such a custom and thought it best to let the rock speak for itself. It had been carved here and there with fashionable landscapes, portrayed as seen from the air. These Bon Agornin had sanctioned, as they cost nothing. They had been done by the young ladies of the house, most especially Haner, who regarded herself as talented in that direction. Illustrious Daverak, who had a splendidly decorated home of his own in the country and another in Irieth for use in the two months of the year that the capital is in fashion, must have disagreed, for he gave the carvings one glance and then settled down by the door. His wife, Berend, or Illust’ Daverak as her husband’s rank now entitled her to be addressed, was less discriminating, for she exclaimed to her servants and children on the beauty of the newest of them, lamenting that they never had anything half so fine when she was a maiden, as if it had been three hundred years ago instead of a mere seven.
When the last flakes of interest had been scraped from the carvings, she settled herself in an alcove under the huge mantel on which were arranged a few pieces of stone sculpture, of no value, as one would expect in an upper cave, but of a certain charm nonetheless.
Blessed Frelt came and stood beside Berend as soon as she had stopped her restless wandering, which would have risked knocking over any companion. He arranged himself comfortably at her side. Berend turned her head to survey him. It was some time since she had last visited her father’s home, and she had not seen Frelt since she left to marry Daverak.
The red priestly cords around his wings were long and trailing, his teeth were polished and filed almost flat. In contrast, his scales were burnished to a bright bronze glow, all of which reflected the rather conflicting views he held of his own position. On the one hand, a parson must be humble, on the other, he holds a high spiritual position, perhaps the highest in the community. Frelt explained it to himself as a strong belief in the sanctity of parsons, which encompassed both his humble teeth and his fine scales. He would never have flown, not even across a ravine, but he did not regard himself as beneath any dragon in the land, however well born. He held his head much higher than those immune were wont to do.
“What beautiful dragonets,” he said now, cooing over them. Long ago he had had aspirations to marry Berend, which was the heart of the trouble between him and her father. Because he had never spoken to her of the subject, she had no official knowledge of this, and they could thus be on civil terms in public. Unofficially, she had known it perfectly well, as well as any maiden who had heard her father fulminate against a suit and been sternly bidden to stay indoors to keep from being carried off. She had remained obediently within doors, but been much more flattered than offended. She had even hoped for a little while that the match would be made. Now that she was settled elsewhere and her scales shone the glorious red of a dragon both married and a mother, she thought him a safe and charming partner for conversation. On his side, he was inclined to see Berend’s lofty marriage as proof of his own good taste, and he liked her more rather than less for it. He had found no other bride in the years between, though as a well-found parson with his own establishment there was no shortage of hopeful partners.
“Yes, all three at my first laying,” she said, looking indulgently down at the dragonets playing under their nanny’s feet. One was black, one was gold, and the third a pale green that would have caused it to be snapped up at once were it not the child of a powerful lord.
“How fortunate for you both,” Frelt said, inclining his head towards Illustrious Daverak, whose posture spoke impatience and who was ignoring the conversation utterly.
“My mother never bore more than two at a time,” Berend said. “I am hoping my next will be three also. The more children the better, under Veld.”
“It is good to see you so obedient to the teachings of the Church,” Frelt said, inclining his head to her this time. “Many of the farmers here seem reluctant to lay at all.”
“It is exactly the same at Daverak,” Berend lamented.
“What is?” Illustrious Daverak asked, looking interested for the first time when he heard his domain mentioned. He was almost as dark as his black dragonet, and very broad-shouldered, his eyes were so pale as to seem almost pink, not at all a good-looking dragon. If it were not for the binding of the wings, anyone would have thought Frelt a finer specimen, and Frelt rejoiced a little more than he should have to know it.
“The lack of dragonets among the farmers and lower classes, dear,” replied Berend fondly.
“I don’t know, there are plenty, plenty indeed,” Illustrious Daverak replied. “Why, the Majes on the causeway farm had another clutch only six days ago. I meant to fly down and check them over today, if it hadn’t been for this confounded summons.”
Berend drew back a little. “My father is dying,” she said, with dignity.
“Oh yes, my dear, we had to come, I know that. I didn’t mean that harshly,” Daverak said, dipping his wings to his wife, who acknowledged this contrition with a tiny inclination of her own wings. “But the Majes have had four born, you know, and they can’t possibly manage another four on that bad land, and I was thinking to bring something nourishing home for little Lamerak.” He gestured with a wingtip at the green dragonet. “A bit off color, you may have noticed,” he said to Frelt. “Temporary, strictly temporary. He needs fresh liver. He shall have it soon in any case. Our coming here made no difference to that, now that I think of it.”
Frelt did not reply that his own little sister, who had been snapped up years ago by a lord for being too green, might have thrived on dragon liver, if she could have got it. “I am sure your own parson pays attention to such things, as you do,” he said.
“I do my duty,” Daverak said, drawing up his wings. “I would no more allow a weakling son of mine to grow wings than that of the meanest farmer. But that is no reason to be hasty. Lamerak will be fully recovered in a week or two.”
“Veld gives us children and Jurale watches the order of the world,” Frelt said, holding out his arms as if conducting a service.
Illustrious Daverak drew back, feeling rebuked, and Berend looked away, disappointed in Frelt and unwilling to speak. An uneasy silence fell in which the sounds of the dragonets playing seemed loud.
3. THE DINING ROOM
In the dining room, things were at first much happier. The room was much less elegant, being older. It had the most modern runnels in the floor for sanitary purposes, but otherwise it had remained unchanged since the cave had been hollowed, back in the Time of Subjugation. The inhabitants of the dining room knew it is not elegance that makes a pleasant gathering but the temperament of those gathered together. By selection of like to like, all the unpleasant members of the party had gathered in the speaking room, and all the pleasant in the dining room.
Haner and Selendra were hatched of the same clutch, had grown up together in their father’s house, had comforted each other after their mother’s death, and had endured their older sister and brothers leaving them with mingled fortitude and relief. They were old enough to marry, but because their father’s treasure had been much depleted by the good marriage of their elder sister and the settlement of their two brothers they had been content to wait and kept house for their father until it should have replenished itself. They were therefore perfectly at home in his big dining room. They were used to complaining that it had no convenient alcoves so they were obliged to spread themselves out almost as if they were in a field, but it was their own field, and they were accustomed to such spreading out and might have missed it if alcoves had been carved.
The two sisters were delighted to welcome their brother Avan back into their company. Since he went to Irieth they had seen him only for a day or two, for his work in the Office for the Planning and Beautification of Irieth kept him fully occupied. For a time, Avan
regaled them with stories of his life in the capital, emphasizing his triumphs and playing down his narrow escapes to such an extent that they each secretly felt they might have done as well if they had had claws and were able to make their way in the world.
“But you’ll be coming home now, of course?” Haner asked at last, wiping the tears of laughter from her silver eyes.
“Home? You mean home here? I dare not. I can’t think how you come to suggest it.” All at once Avan became aware that the old servant Amer had stopped polishing Haner’s tail and both his sisters were staring at him. “Did you really think I meant to do so?”
“Why, yes,” Selendra said, after a quick glance at her sister and their attendant showed neither of them were about to speak. “We thought that after Father died you would come home and be Dignified as he was. Penn is a parson, and besides he has a house and a wife away at Benandi. You could have this establishment—”
“I see you have thought it all out,” Avan said, pulling himself to his feet. “My dear maidens, have you not considered that in addition to being seventy feet long and fire-breathing, Father is, or rather was, nearly five hundred years old? I am barely one hundred, barely twenty feet long, and have no fire as yet, nor much prospect of gaining any soon. I am doing well enough in my career for one who began it when I did, but that was hardly ten years ago and I don’t taste dragon meat twice in a year. Also I couldn’t bring my career here with me. If I set up as Dignified, all the neighborhood Dignifieds and Illustriouses would eat away at our territory and eventually at us, sure as sunrise. There would be no way I could stop them, hardly more than you two could alone.”
The two maidens looked at each other in dismay, and Amer gave a little cry of fear. “Then what will become of—of the establishment?” Selendra asked, not yet bold enough to ask yet about their persons.
“I don’t know why you haven’t asked Penn this, or Father,” Avan said, shifting uncomfortably. “I am not the eldest. Nobody consults me about this sort of thing. But I dare say Daverak will take it on until one of his children is old enough to manage it for himself. That was part of the agreement when he married Berend, I believe, if Father should die before I was strong enough. Did nobody tell you any of this?”
“You may not be the eldest, but you are a dragon grown. We are just useless females,” Selendra said, her violet eyes flashing. “Afterthoughts. Nobody tells us anything. We are doubtless to be the dinner for the rest of you, and I would have appreciated a little time to prepare myself for that.”
“How?” Avan asked, amused and intrigued despite himself.
“By flying right away,” Selendra answered, daringly.
“No, I was teasing,” her brother said. “Your future is assured, both of you. Neither of you shall be dinner. Penn wrote to me that according to our father’s wishes the gold was to be divided between me and you two, except for a symbolic piece each for the others. The establishment will go to Berend’s children. One of you will go to live with Berend, and the other with Penn.”
Amer and Haner gave little cries, and Sel flung her arms and wings around her sister.
“Anyone would think I had suggested you would be eaten immediately,” said Avan. “You’re the most ungrateful sisters a dragon ever had.”
“Couldn’t you take us?” Selendra asked. “We have never seen Irieth but we could keep house for you beautifully, just as we did here for Father.”
Avan couldn’t hide his shudder, it shook his wings. “I’ve no room for you,” he said, truthfully enough, thinking of the comforts of his city establishment. “And Irieth is no place for maidens, unless they are chaperoned and have known names. I couldn’t protect you there any more than I could here. You would be someone’s dinner sooner or later, or worse. You’ll be safe with Penn and Berend.”
“Safe, but separate,” said Haner, in tones that told her brother that this was tragedy indeed. “You know Selendra is so impulsive and I am so thoughtful that separated there is no knowing what she might do, while I will never do anything at all.”
“And Berend doesn’t like me,” Selendra said.
“Well then, Sel, you should go to Penn,” Avan said, as evenly as he could manage.
“Penn has a wife who is a stranger,” Selendra said.
“And they have two dragonets already, she’ll probably be very glad to have extra help with them. You’re really much better off than most maidens in your position would be.”
“How?” Selendra asked.
Avan knew so much more about this than he would have wanted his sisters ever to learn that he just shook his head slowly and let his gold eyes whirl warningly.
“I think I could bear anything if we were together,” Haner said, and her voice broke on a sob in the middle of the sentence.
“You’ll be married soon enough,” Avan said. “I thought Daverak said something about Haner and some friend of his?”
Haner brightened a little at the thought of Londaver, her brother-in-law’s friend. But she did not loosen her grip on her sister.
Just then, as both caves were silent, Penn called up from the undercave that Bon Agornin had gone down into the last darkness.
4. SOME UNSEEMLINESS IN THE UNDERCAVE
Bon Agornin and his son-in-law had not always understood each other perfectly. Illustrious Daverak had been informed, and even consulted, as to his father-in-law’s distribution of his wealth. Nothing had been said to him about the distribution of his body. This was not from any fault either on the part of Daverak or old Bon, for each had thought the matter obvious—Bon that the body would be distributed along the same lines as the wealth, and Daverak that it would be divided equally among the family. It was thus that he had assumed the availability of liver for poor little Lamerak. To Bon, perhaps because he began its serious growth in the manner he had confessed to Penn, his body was a part of his wealth, part of what he passed on to help his children. To the Illustrious, a dragon’s body was a matter altogether distinct from a dragon’s gold, and this was so ingrained a belief with him as to hardly need stating.
When the cry came and the family gathered to go down, because of the geography of the caves, the group from the Speaking Room were ahead of those from the Dining Room. Illustrious Daverak, having been at the door of the Speaking Room, was to the fore. Immediately behind him was Blessed Frelt, then the dragonets, herded by Illust’ Berend. Then came Avan and his sisters from the Dining Room. The servants, naturally, remained above, where Amer found plenty of work to do and Berend’s attendants sat fanning each other and gossiping about their betters.
Penn waited in the door of the undercave, his head bowed so low in sorrow that he did not recognize Illustrious Daverak until he was almost upon him. There was no room for more than three in the undercave, so Illustrious Daverak came in, and the others perforce waited, most of them in polite silence, but the dragonets emitted impatient little hisses.
“Our father Bon is dead,” Penn said. “We must now partake of his remains, that we might grow strong with his strength, remembering him always.”
Illustrious Daverak bowed his head a little at the words, then with no further ado, snatched off his dead father-in-law’s leg, shook off the few remaining scales and took a huge bite. Thus far, Penn did not remonstrate, but when he took another bite, of no less size than the last, he put out a restraining claw.
“Surely, brother, you have taken what has been agreed,” he said, quietly.
“Agreed?” Illustrious Daverak asked, for in his mind there had been no such agreement. He took another bite, blood dripping down his chin. “What are you talking about?”
“You and Berend and I were to take one bite each, and leave the rest for our less advanced brothers and sisters,” Penn said, with the fraying patience of a dragon who has just lost his father in trying circumstances.
“No, Blessed Penn, that agreement was in reference to his gold.” Illustrious Daverak actually laughed as he took another bite, for he genuinely believed what he said
and thought Penn absurd.
“Stop, stop now,” Penn said, attempting to stand between his brother-in-law and his father’s body. “You have already had more than we agreed. Put down that leg.”
“Nonsense,” Illustrious Daverak said. “If you have chosen not to take a portion, very well, but I shall take a son’s and a lord’s, and so shall Berend and my children.”
Penn had very few options. If he could have considered fighting, Illustrious Daverak was a full ten feet longer than he was, even if neither of them had yet come to their flame. He was a lord, and fulfilled all of his duty when it came to consumption of excess dragonets and the weak and surplus population generally in his land. That would not have stopped Penn at that moment, had it not been for the fact that he was Blessed, an immune parson, his wings bound. He could neither fight nor call challenge unless he wished to leave his calling.
“Stop in the name of the Church, or face penalty,” he said therefore.
Illustrious Daverak did stop, his mouth open. Then he turned to the doorway where Blessed Frelt was waiting, taking everything in. Illustrious Daverak did not have very high hopes of Frelt, after their conversation in the Speaking Room, but he appealed to him now as to a neutral witness. “Can he do this?” Illustrious Daverak demanded.
“Yes, tell him,” Penn said, his silver eyes whirling so fast they almost made Frelt dizzy.
Frelt looked from the angry parson to the angry Illustrious, and preened his wings a little. He was no Illustrious’s parson, but the parson for the parish of Undertor, a large area that took in six demesnes, of which Agornin was one. This was part of what had given him his independence, and his inflated sense of his own rights. He had eaten his parson’s share of eyes from all the dead and unfit for all of Undertor for fifty years, and he had done it without angering any of the Dignifieds under whom he served, save Bon Agornin alone, when he aspired to marry his daughter. Now his enemy lay dead, and he was appealed to by both parties.
