Tooth and Claw

by Jo Walton

  “Is Berend well?” Avan asked.

  “Thriving so far,” Daverak said. “Making sure to eat all the right things, of course, as you would expect. She feels quite experienced now, of course, not nervous like last time.”

  Although she was their sister, none of them liked to ask if she had already laid the first egg, nor did Daverak volunteer the information. It was also impossible for any of them to accuse him of risking the life of their sister by forcing her to produce another clutch so soon after the first, though this was in all their thoughts.

  “Well, we should be going if we are to catch our train,” Penn said, breaking another awkward pause. It was as yet far too early for the train, but it provided an excuse for Selendra to depart to gather her belongings, and Haner to accompany her. The three male dragons sat a while and looked at the view in silence. It was raining.

  “I must speak to the farmers about the crops for this year and next year,” Daverak said, looking at the fields. It was his duty and old Bon’s wish, but both of Bon’s sons felt that it was insensitive of Daverak to be thinking about this already.

  “Will you have a bailiff live here to supervise the Agornin farmers?” Penn asked.

  “Yes, we thought that would answer for the time being,” Daverak said. “I have a cousin who would do well. We considered asking you, Avan, but Berend thought you were doing well enough in your career in Irieth that being bailiff of your father’s estate would be a step down for you.”

  “Yes,” Avan said, mechanically. While it was true that his career was prospering, as far as gold and prospects went, he had no security whatever and could be snapped up at any time. A secure job as a bailiff under his brother-in-law’s protection would prevent him continuing his career, but he could still hope to rise by making judicious investments with his friends in Irieth. It would enable him to give his sisters a home together. He would need to bring his clerk to join him, but that could be managed somehow, he thought, glossing over the difficulties such a thing would cause. It would have been better if Daverak had suggested this before, he would have to give up his intention of a lawsuit. At once a whole edifice of complicated interlocking plans set itself in motion in Avan’s nimble brain. “I think on the whole that it would suit me very well, all the same. Thank you, Daverak.”

  Daverak blinked slowly. “I am sorry you feel like that, we were sure you would not want it. I have offered it already to my cousin Vrimid, who will arrive at Daverak today.” He made a wing motion of slight regret, and put down his foot as if that closed the matter entirely.

  Selendra came back to find Avan sitting drawn up sejant, and glowering, Daverak sprawled out, indifferent, and Penn, uneasily couchant, between them. “I am ready,” she said.

  “Let us go then,” Penn said. “There’s no need for any of you to come down with us. Good-bye, Daverak, blessings on your increase, and give my best wishes to Berend. Good-bye, Avan, and good luck in Irieth, write and tell us how things are for you.”

  Selendra embraced Avan.

  “Take care of yourself,” he said.

  “You be careful in Irieth,” she replied. Then she bowed to Daverak, which he returned coldly. Haner accompanied them to the station, fussing over the boxes that contained Selendra’s dowry and the boxes Amer had brought from the kitchens until the train came. Then she and Selendra clung together as if they would refuse to be parted. Penn and the porters saw to the stowing of the boxes, then Penn hopped up onto the flat bed of the train. Amer followed him up. The whistle blew, warning the tardy that the train was about to depart, and at last Selendra let go of her sister and flew up to her own place beside her brother. She watched until Haner was quite out of sight on the platform behind her, until she could not make out the gold of her sister’s scales from the gray of the stone, then she set her head resolutely towards the engine and the new life she would find in Benandi.

  14. HANER LEAVES

  After even the plume of steam from the train was quite out of sight, Haner turned and flew back up to Agornin. She tried to console herself that she was not, like Selendra, going quite away to a part of Tiamath she had never seen before and where she had no friends. She would only be at Daverak, hardly an hour’s flight from home any time she might find someone willing to escort her on such a flight. She had visited Berend at Daverak on several occasions, sometimes for as much as ten days at a time and she knew Daverak well, while Penn’s wife was a stranger. They were not very consoling reflections. She might know the Illustrious Daverak, but she did not like him. She had spent time in his establishment, but she had never felt at home—the greatest pleasure in visiting Berend was returning home afterwards. Now there would be no home, and if she visited Agornin it would be as a guest, and everything in the establishment would be changed.

  Those of her family who loved her and cared about her seemed to believe that she would soon leave Berend’s establishment for one of her own with Dignified Londaver, a friend of Daverak’s. Haner herself doubted it strongly. She liked Londaver, but their association thus far was limited to two dances at Daverak last Year’s End, since which time he had not even come to call at Agornin, though she had asked her father to invite him. She did not think his preference for her was sufficiently strong that he would take her with only eight thousand crowns, nor even the sixteen she would have if she and Selendra considered themselves to have pooled their resources. Londaver was not a Dignified by rank, as Bon Agornin had been, but was Dignified by nature of being heir to his father’s Illustrious status. Berend had taken forty thousand crowns with her when she married, and Haner had no reason to imagine that Londaver would accept less than Daverak had. While her father was alive and there was plenty of time for him to accumulate more gold, this was no obstacle. Now it seemed that in addition to her other sorrows it had loomed up to divide Haner forever from a dragon she felt she could have been happy to marry.

  Small wonder then if her wing-beats were half-hearted as she rose up from the station and back around the mountain to the place she must learn not to call home!

  Only Avan awaited her. “Daverak has gone off to see the farmers and make sure they understand him,” he said, imitating Daverak’s tones cruelly. “As if our farmers need that kind of telling.”

  “Oh dear,” Haner said, alighting gently beside her brother and settling herself comfortably sejant beside him. “I do hope he doesn’t introduce too many new ways of doing things and change everything.”

  Now Avan, as a rising young dragon in Irieth, was in general in favor of new ways of doing things and change, but in this instance he agreed with his sister absolutely. “He says he thought of installing me as bailiff here, but as soon as he said it he snatched it away from me again, saying he had offered it already to some cousin of his.”

  “But you said you couldn’t live here,” Haner said, timidly.

  “I couldn’t live here and take a place as Dignified in the neighborhood. But with Daverak’s backing and as his bailiff I could have overseen the place and made a home here for the two of you.”

  “Oh Avan, you’d have sacrificed yourself and your career for us,” Haner said, much moved.

  Avan preened himself a little, seeming to grow longer in the sunlight. Now she mentioned it, he would have been sacrificing himself for his sisters, and although he did not forget that he need not have quite given up his hopes and that the safety of the position had also been a factor in his considerations. He allowed those to recede into the back of his mind and enjoyed his sister’s admiration as she made much of him. They remained on the ledge and talked of Avan’s nobility, and old times, and idly watched a cart creeping towards them along the river road.

  “That will have come from Daverak to take back your dowry,” Avan said at last, indicating the cart.

  “How I wish I did not have to go there,” Haner said.

  “It might be awkward for you when I am taking Daverak to court on all our behalfs,” Avan admitted.

  “Awkward? It will be impossible
. I cannot put my name to any such paper while I am living under Daverak’s protection,” Haner said. “Selendra will no doubt join with you, and I do see that you are quite in the right to seek reparation, but please don’t ask me to help you.”

  “He might make himself unpleasant, but he wouldn’t throw you out,” Avan urged.

  “He wouldn’t need to throw me out to make himself so unpleasant, as you put it, that I couldn’t live in his establishment. I don’t think you realize how different it is for me than for you. You can make your way by your own wits and claws, while I must always be dependent upon some male to protect me. Wits I may have, but claws I am without, and while hands are useful for writing and fine work they are no use in a battle. Without them I am completely dependent, and may not turn on those upon whom I am dependent, at least, not without some other protection in prospect. If I had a husband, or if you, my brother, could receive me into your establishment, then I could turn on Daverak with pleasure. As it is I must bend to his whims, whatever my own wishes are, and dare not join you.”

  Avan bowed his head very low, considering some sacrifices it would be very difficult for him to make. “It would not be an easy life,” he said, after a moment. “It would also be difficult for me, and could not happen quite at once, not at any rate today. But if you truly do not wish to go to Daverak I will take you to Irieth with me. You could not live as the Respected Agornin should, for I could not afford to support you in that way. You would need to work in place of my clerk, or possibly beside my clerk. Nor can I say it would be truly safe, for you would only be as safe as I am, which varies from day to day as affairs in the city and the office change. It would mean some hardship for both of us, but I am prepared to endure that if necessary.” He hardly knew what Penn would think of him, suggesting on one day that Selendra might become a consort and on the next that Haner might become a clerk.

  “Bless you, brother, but it isn’t necessary,” Haner said, kissing Avan on the side of his muzzle. “I can endure to live with Berend and Daverak, as long as you do not ask me to join with you in attacking Daverak in the courts.”

  “Of course I shall not ask it,” Avan replied. “It is only that my case will seem a lot weaker if the three of us do not stand together. But I shall not ask it if that is how things stand.”

  They sat together sadly for a little while more, until Daverak came back, full of his own importance. The boxes of Haner’s dowry were loaded onto the cart, and brother and sister bade each other farewell.

  “Do come and see us at Daverak any time you can get away from Irieth,” Illustrious Daverak said generously as they made ready to depart.

  Avan assented pleasantly, but he and Haner knew that once the court case began the offer would be withdrawn and never repeated. He wondered for a moment if it was worth the cost of dividing him from his sister, even if it could succeed without Haner’s help. Yet Avan was so set upon getting revenge in this way that nothing could turn his purpose. He smiled and wished them a pleasant journey. Then he rose up and flew against the wind for Irieth, intending to break his journey that night at Mosswindle. Haner and Daverak went with the wind, west towards Daverak. Haner looked back only once, to see her brother dwindling south and the peak that had been her home already almost lost among the clouds.

  15. SEBETH

  When Avan returned at last to his lodgings in the capital, late on the evening of Firstday, tired, but not as weary as he would have been if he had flown through the night, he found a great many cards and notes awaiting him. Many were from his acquaintance in the city—Exalt Rimalin had sent a very friendly note—expressing their sorrow at his loss. Some of these were genuine enough, for though few of them knew Bon Agornin, they were sympathetic in their friend’s loss. Others were more speculative, as if they rather intended to reassess Avan’s worth now that he had inherited, or now that Agornin no longer stood behind him. Some of these made him uneasy, and these he laid to one side to consider when he woke. The rest, and this included most of the cards, were invitations to entertainments. Irieth was not crowded at the beginning of Leafturn, but those who lived there all year enjoyed a little burst of jollification at that time, which was the anniversary of the founding of the city, many thousand years before, by the ancient and possibly mythical Tomalin the Great. (Some said he had named Irieth after his bride, others argued that it had first had a different name which had been changed during the Yarge Conquest, others said that Tomalin had named it for the rainbows, sometimes called riths, that could be seen in the city in the spring months.) Such exotic offerings as unison flamings, water parties, and circuit walking thus joined the usual delights of dinners, balls, dice-evenings, rout-parties, and picnics, and to many of these Avan was bidden.

  When he had dealt with this weight of correspondence, he had four piles and three notes left over. The first two piles consisted of notes of sympathy divided by sincerity. The second two were cards of invitation, divided into those to which he would return polite but negative thanks, owing to his bereavement, and the much smaller pile which he would certainly attend. He kept the remaining three notes in his hand for a moment. The first was from his attorney, Hathor, offering any help that might be needed with storing or investing Avan’s inheritance. “I’d bet a farm that he knows the amount to the last crown,” Avan said to himself, setting the note on top of the pile of invitations which he would accept. The second was from Liralen, his immediate superior in the Planning Office, offering condolences and wondering when Avan would be back at his desk.

  The third was from the Exalted Rimalin, and said nothing whatsoever of Bon Agornin but merely hinted, rather cryptically, that if Avan had any money to invest, he knew of an opportunity. Avan looked at this note for a long time, then sought the note of sympathy from Exalt Rimalin. There was no doubt that they were written in the same hand. When a dragon uses his wife as his clerk, it means one of two things. Either he is economizing, which, as Avan had explained to Penn, would not have been how he would have read his friend’s situation at all, or he is dealing in very confidential information. Avan would have listened to Rimalin’s proposition in any case, but now he would listen to it very much more carefully.

  He left the piles where they were. His lodging was a comfortable double-domed building, made of stone that at least gave the appearance of solidity. Underneath, there was only one sleeping cave, which, however, had an exit of its own to the street. Avan did not consider the place secure, but it did manage to combine respectability and inexpensiveness, so he kept his valuables with his attorney and continued to lodge there.

  He whistled as he went down towards the sleeping cave, not from any lightness of heart but to wake his clerk, Sebeth, and give her a little warning, if such might be necessary, that he was returning and would expect to find her alone. Avan called Sebeth his clerk, but it would have been hard to say what her status really was. Certainly she performed the functions of a clerk, she wrote Avan’s notes and carried his messages, she was educated enough to act as a respected maiden clerk. But she was of no Respected status and was for that matter no maiden, she was head to toe an even eggshell pink. She shared Avan’s quarters, and often enough his bed, though she was not his wife. She cared for his clothes and his food, but she was not his servant—her wings showed some sign of having been bound at some time, but they flexed now as freely as those of any Exalt in Tiamath. The truth of her history and condition only she and Avan knew.

  She was alone in the sleeping cave when Avan reached it, stretching and yawning. “I didn’t expect you until tomorrow,” she said, smiling at him. Avan knew better than to inquire if there had been some friend visiting who had left at his arrival. The whistle was sufficient. He did not know whether her other lovers were real or part of her imaginative life, and as long as he was not forced to meet them he was happy that way.

  Sebeth welcomed him into the sleeping cave. She had arranged the gold already, he noticed. “This won’t be staying here,” he warned. He had not enough gold to
spare for comfort or display, and they generally slept on rocks.

  “I know, it’ll all be invested and taken away,” Sebeth pouted, then laughed. “But we can enjoy it while we can. See how delicious it is to stretch out on?” She suited the action to the words, smiling enticingly.

  Sebeth was, or claimed to be, the daughter of an Eminent Lord—not even Avan knew which one. Counting up the nobility and their ages, he sometimes suspected it may have been an Exalted or an Illustrious rather than an Eminent, but he did not challenge her illusions. She had little enough to comfort her. At an early age, scarcely thirty years, with her wings barely grown, she had been kidnapped when on her way from her tutor’s to her father’s demesne. The kidnapper held her for ransom. He tormented her with his presence, causing her to blush, but he did not dare actually assault her until the ransom demand was scornfully refused. Thereafter he made her something which it pleased him to call his consort. Later, he forced her to walk the streets of Irieth with bound wings, a streetwalker who could refuse no stranger who offered her gold. This gold she was forced to hand over to her captor. The worst of it was, she had told Avan, that he had made her believe that she owed it to him, because the ransom had not been paid. The betrayal of her father was almost worse to her than the subsequent servitude to which her family had left her to be subjected. “He said he had dragonets enough and that they were welcome to keep me,” she said when she first told Avan the story. For once there was no artifice in her voice, no teasing, her sapphire eyes were almost still. “I stayed with my captor until I had paid him back, by my calculations, the ransom he had expected. Then I killed him while he slept.”

  Whether she had in truth waited until she had repaid the ransom or until she had a more acceptable protector, Avan was not sure. Sebeth’s life was full of daring escapes, murders, doomed lovers, and drama. He never knew what to believe, and sometimes the stories changed. He was quite sure she was gently born and kidnapped into servitude, but the details shifted with her moods. He had met her in his first year in Irieth, when she had been employed as a dealer at a gambling club. He had at first been fascinated, and been one of the many lovers she took now for her own choice, not for gold. From this they had progressed to friendship and an alliance, in which Avan gave her employment and his protection, such as it was. He did not call her his consort or wife, and he paid her for the clerkly services she performed. He paid her something more than that from time to time as it suited them both. Avan could not have married her. He was quite aware that she was no longer someone who could be considered respectable, and that however much of that had initially been by no fault of her own, the way she had chosen to continue to live was not one that could have been condoned by the respectable world. All the same, he was very fond of her, and it would have been a great sacrifice for him to put her aside had he brought Haner to Irieth as he had offered.