Tooth and Claw

by Jo Walton

  “Do you miss your father?” she asked, after a little while.

  Avan had not had time to think about it. “Yes,” he said, after a little consideration. “But almost worse than his death was the manner of his funeral, and the way my sister’s husband Daverak went against all my father’s wishes. I am going to take him to law and make him wish he had behaved as a gently born dragon should.”

  “Is he not a great dragon, and an Illustrious?” Sebeth asked. She laughed. “You’ll get scant justice in the courts against one like him. You’d do better to save your gold and your animosity until you see a good opportunity to do him harm elsewhere.”

  Avan considered for a moment. “The courts are just,” he said, hesitantly. He had never had much to do with them, but his father had always told him so. “I want revenge on Daverak this way. Besides, his rank is not so much more than mine, and he is married to my sister.”

  “If family feeling didn’t restrain him in his offense, what way will it restrain him now?” Sebeth asked.

  “The law will make him pay,” Avan said.

  “Well, if you believe that,” Sebeth replied, and put her head down upon her arms and was, in any case to all appearances, immediately asleep.

  16. THE PERILS OF CONSUMPTION

  Haner’s first shock on arrival at Daverak was to discover that little Lamerak had been devoured. “He was ailing all this year,” Berend said, a single tear in her eye.

  “The liver did him no good, the poor little chap couldn’t hope to survive,” Daverak said, shaking his head portentously. “Come in to dinner.”

  Haner found it hard to understand why, if Lamerak had managed to survive so long, he should have been allowed to be consumed now. True, it was a duty of a lord to cull even his own dragonet for the general improvement of dragonkind, but this case of consumption seemed terribly abrupt. It was during one of Berend’s long rambling complaints later that evening about the strains of increasing that she thought she caught a glimmer of understanding. Berend needed additional sustenance, and Daverak had nursed the feeble hatchling along until it was clear he could be replaced. Haner prayed to Jurale to be forgiven for thinking such wicked thoughts of her own sister and brother-in-law, but what they said on the subject as the evening went on seemed to confirm rather than deny her suspicions.

  After an uneasy night’s sleep in the comfortable chamber her sister had provided, she breakfasted with the family. The dragonets were subdued and kept looking over their shoulders for their missing clutch-mate. Haner’s heart softened towards them, especially as their parents seemed to care so little about their loss and tore at their breakfasts with enthusiasm. She made an attempt to divert and entertain the children, with some success. By the end of the meal they were smiling and had eaten almost half a muttonwool between them.

  “How do you feel this morning?” Daverak asked Berend. “I’m going to fly to the Causeway Farm and see how the Maje hatchlings are coming on. Would you care to accompany me?”

  “It’s very near,” Berend said, with an apologetic glance to Haner, as if to excuse herself for not flying to Agornin on the previous day.

  “Hardly more than a glide,” Daverak confirmed. “Maybe you’d like to come with us, Haner? Get to know some of our farmers a little? See the countryside?”

  “The Majes are a very old family,” Berend said, glancing at her husband for confirmation. “They’ve lived in the Causeway Farm almost as long as the Daveraks have held Daverak.”

  Daverak inclined his head in confirmation of his wife’s statements.

  “I’d be delighted to accompany you,” Haner said, politely.

  Nannies came in and took the dragonets away. Daverak also went out. Haner sponged her face and chest in the dining room with Berend. This was the first time she had been entirely alone with her sister since her arrival. “Have you laid the first egg?” Haner asked, quietly, as she could not have asked in front of Daverak and the children.

  “Yesterday morning,” Berend said, with a smug little smile. “No difficulty at all, though I have been ravenous ever since. That’s normal, as you’ll see when you have a clutch for yourself.”

  “That might not be for some time,” Haner said, wondering if she would ever be able to marry.

  “It’s lovely to have you here, of course, and I want you to feel perfectly at home and have a long stay with us. But all the same, before very long we must find you a nice husband and see you settled comfortably. It’s much better to have the security. How much did Father leave you for a dowry in the end?”

  “Sixteen thousand crowns,” Haner said, as she had agreed, feeling tears coming to her eyes as the remembrance of her vow made her think of Selendra, so far away. Berend, kind as she was being, was a very poor substitute for her beloved clutch-mate.

  “That’s more than I feared, but not as much as I hoped,” Berend said, briskly, drawing herself to her feet. “I’m well aware that it was my good fortune to be well dowered, and do not mean to see you marry beneath yourself because of that. Now hush, Daverak is coming back. We’ll talk about this later.”

  Daverak led them to the ledge, and from there out into the cool fresh air of a sunny morning in Leafturn. The russets were ripe and the scent of them drifted up as they flew over the orchards. They flew towards the lake that was the center of the Daverak demesnes. It seemed almost the shape of a dragon’s eye, though of a deeper blue and more still than any eye she had seen. As they drew near the shore Haner spotted a little island in the water, connected to the land by a causeway of heaped stone. There was a little farm on it, also of piled stone. As they circled lower to land she caught sight of a herd of beeves, with a bronze dragon among them.

  “There’s Maje,” Daverak said. “I expect the family are inside.”

  They came boiling out as their lord and lady landed, even the youngest flattening their claws and tails to the ground in an old-fashioned gesture of respect. Haner counted three half-grown dragonets, well on their way to having wings, and two small hatchlings. “Well, well,” Daverak said, smiling benignly.

  A dark red dragon, clearly the mother of the family, was the first to straighten. “Welcome to the Causeway, Illust, Illustrious,” she said.

  “This is my sister, Respected Haner Agornin,” Berend said. “She’s come to stay with us for a little while.”

  “Very nice, I’m sure,” said the farmer. One of the older dragonets, whose gold scales showed that she was a maiden, looked up at Haner. She smiled reassuringly, but the maiden did not smile back as any farmer at Agornin would have. Strangers everywhere, Haner thought.

  Just then, the father, the bronze dragon who had been among the beeves, came running up, keeping himself low to the ground as if he were in a cave.

  “How is everything here?” Daverak asked him.

  “Very well, very well indeed, thank you for asking,” he said. “The russets are half harvested already, and the beeves are doing nicely.”

  “And your hatchlings?”

  He looked at his wife uncomfortably. “Safely hatched,” he said, but the set of his wings betrayed his discomfort.

  “And the other two?” Daverak asked sternly. “The two I don’t see out here?”

  The mother rushed forward and threw herself down at the ground at Daverak’s feet. “Spare my hatchlings!” she cried, rubbing her head on the ground. “Have mercy, Illustrious.”

  “It is not I who will have mercy but Jurale,” Daverak said, stepping away from her. “I will see all four hatchlings, or I will see the unhatched eggs. Maje, take care of your wife.”

  Maje, the farmer, looked at Daverak for a moment. His gray eyes whirled with emotion. He put his tail back straight, and for a moment looked almost as if he would attack Daverak, though that would be suicidal. He was twelve feet long and Daverak forty. His stance subsided to subservience.

  “I told you it would do no good, not after last time,” said Maje, putting his arm around his wife and drawing her aside. She began to howl and cry
loudly.

  Daverak stalked over to the smaller hatchlings on the ground and began to examine them.

  Berend stepped closer to Haner. “The lower classes always make this unseemly fuss,” she said. “It can be quite heart-rending. They’ve hidden the weaklings, even though they know it won’t achieve anything. The two out here will be the stronger ones, and the others will be hidden somewhere in there.”

  Daverak entered the house. The two dragonets he had inspected clung together in silence.

  “Shouldn’t the priest be here?” Haner asked. She was shaken by the experience, especially by the wretched howling of the mother, which showed no signs of ceasing.

  “The demesne’s too big for him to go everywhere. Daverak will send him the eyes,” Berend explained.

  Daverak came out with a hatchling under each arm. They were small and green and clearly not fit to survive. Their mother set up a renewed wail at the sight of them, louder than ever. They were still moving, and responded to this with piping wails of their own, with which their healthier siblings joined.

  Haner shivered. “I’m sorry to subject you to all this,” Berend said, politely.

  “It is for the good of dragonkind, as the Church teaches,” Haner said, repeating the words by rote. “And they’re very clearly the kind of dragonets who really do need to be culled,” she added, looking at them.

  “Nobody enjoys it, but it is necessary, and well-bred dragons endure it without this terrible racket,” Berend said, shouting to be heard.

  The howling and wailing almost drowned out Daverak’s recitation of the prayers. Haner heard an occasional phrase drifting through, “Veld’s blessings,” and “Jurale’s mercy,” and “that the rest might grow stronger.” Daverak then dismembered the dragonets neatly. Once they were dead, the family fell silent. He dropped the eyes into a pouch, doubtless for the priest. Then he looked at the collected dragons.

  “These unfit hatchlings died for the good of dragonkind and according to the teachings of the Church,” he said, sternly. Maje touched his claws to the ground in submission. His wife bowed her head. Daverak dropped two of the tiny limbs on the grass in front of the family. He handed another to Haner, who took it in surprise, and divided the remainder between himself and Berend, giving Berend almost all of one of the dragonets.

  Haner looked at the leg hesitantly, aware of the eyes of the family on her as she put it to her mouth. They had not yet touched their portion. She took a bite, and at once felt the strong magical taste of dragonflesh burning through her, making her feel immediately longer and braver. She met the eyes of the mother, and saw in their whirling purple depths resentment, grief, and fear.

  5

  Exalt Benandi’s Demesne

  17. FELIN AGORNIN

  Felin Agornin stepped out of her home, arched her neck, leaned forwards, spread her wings to the wind, and soared upwards. It was a beautiful day. The sun shone, the trees were still green, but there was a chill in the early morning air that said that the month was Leafturn and that winter would soon be upon them.

  It was the morning before Penn and Selendra left Agornin, the morning on which Felin had received her husband’s letter informing her of the addition to their household he had arranged. She had received the letter at breakfast and her emotions had chased each other over her countenance swiftly as she read it. She had been pleased and surprised to hear from Penn, then increasingly distressed by the news of the letter as it continued. Another servant! Another servant who had been Penn’s old nanny and would be full of herself and her importance to him and to his sister! Felin was ready to do her best to welcome Selendra into her establishment, but she wanted it to be quite clear it was her establishment into which Selendra was entering. Selendra was Penn’s sister whom they were choosing to feed and shelter and protect. She did not want abject gratitude, but she did want the facts to be recognized. If Selendra was bringing her own servant it quite changed the position in which she would be regarded. Felin was not deceived by Penn’s words about Amer being useful with the dragonets and in the kitchens. An old family retainer arriving with Selendra would be seen as Selendra’s servant, whatever other work she did. Worst of all, her husband expected her to break the news to Exalt Benandi.

  In the invisible court in her head Felin arraigned, tried, and convicted her absent husband of cowardice, extravagance, and folly. But even as she set the letter down she knew she would never reveal this judgment to anyone, least of all to Penn himself. Nor, as he had suggested she should, would she side with Exalt Benandi against him. Had she wanted to do so, she would not have waited for his permission, but she would never do anything of the kind. She knew what a wife owed to a husband, even if he did not. She sent a servant at once to order the drafters for the next day, checked that the nanny had the children well in hand, and, not putting off the unpleasant task for a moment longer than was necessary, stepped out to visit Exalt Benandi.

  Benandi was a great place, much bigger than all of Undertor, and it was all the demesne of the Exalted Benandi. The name of Benandi was used for the whole demesne, stretching for several hours flight in all directions. In the center of the domain lay the mountain establishment that was the chief home of the Exalt, and of her son when he was home, which generally meant only those months of spring and autumn when the hunting was good. This establishment was known as Benandi Place.

  Benandi Place was a complicated honeycomb of caves at the top of a cliff. Benandi Parsonage lay almost at the foot of this cliff. The parson (whoever he might be, for the parsonage, as usual, went with the position), had easy access to the ground, and a passage up within the rock connecting his dwelling with that of his patrons. There was a splendid chapel a little in the old style within Benandi Place, where the Exalt generally heard a Firstday evening service. In the morning she preferred to attend the church (which was dedicated to Sainted Gerin, but known to all as Benandi Church) conveniently located downwind in the valley. With many of our gentry who have chapels of their own but who prefer to attend divine service in public, the impulse springs from a desire to be seen, or to be seen to do one’s duty, or sometimes simply from a dislike of the early rising required to have a service in the chapel, which must necessarily occur before the one in the church. With the Exalt, however, everyone knew it was rather that she desired to see everyone else doing their duty in church. If she did not see any of her farmers, or indeed her neighbors, in church on a Firstday morning, she regarded it as part of her duty to visit them within a day or two and inquire into the matter. The dragons in the neighborhood of Benandi Place were thus much given to admirably regular and punctual churchgoing.

  Felin could have used this Parson’s Passage and walked up through half a mile of tunnels, past the chapel, and into the upper caves of Benandi Place. As she was not a parson, she could choose to fly instead. She never walked up except on Firstdays, and on the rare occasions, generally when the Exalted Sher Benandi was in residence, when she was taking her dragonets to visit the Place. Sher liked children. The Exalt did not care for the disorder they could cause. On almost all other occasions when Felin visited the Place, even when Penn was walking up, she caught an updraught from the parsonage ledge and simply glided up the cliff. Felin loved to fly, loved it, that is, when she had the excuse for it. She never neglected any of her duties in favor of flying. But there was no joy to her like that of feeling the wind in her wings. She banked gently and rose in a lazy spiral, hardly moving out from the cliff at all, for she knew the winds very well, and landed on the ledge of the Place with hardly a jolt.

  “Well flown,” said an unexpected voice.

  “Sher!” said Felin, turning in astonishment. The Exalted Sher Benandi was lying couchant along the ledge, the burnished bronze scales of his sixty-foot length shining in the morning sunlight. “I mean Exalted Benandi,” Felin corrected herself in a little confusion. “I had not known you were home.”

  “Oh, good hunting to you, Blest Agornin, if we must be on such terms, which I say
we should not. I have called you Felin and you me Sher since we were little wingless dragonets crawling around together. As for not knowing I was here, do not you say you are here to see my mother and will have none of me,” Sher said, dropping his jaw in an absurdly exaggerated leer.

  Felin laughed, a spontaneous chuckle that seemed to rise from her toes. She did not think it appropriate in a parson’s wife to laugh like that, but she had, as he said, known Sher since they were dragonets. “I am delighted to see you, just surprised, that’s all. I saw your mother only yesterday and she didn’t tell me you were expected.”

  “Does she keep you dancing attendance every day?” Sher asked, disapprovingly, then went on without waiting for an answer. “Well the truth is I came on the flick of a wing. My visit was proving damnably dull, and I thought a little rest at home would be pleasant.”

  “Would prove restorative after a debauch, you mean,” Felin countered, though as she spoke she wished she could catch it back. Sher did look tired, not just weary after his long flight but worn as if from troubles.