Tooth and Claw

by Jo Walton

  “We could introduce you,” Ketinar said. “We’ve always wanted the best for you, Avan. We could also talk to her mother and father and tell them how much we esteem you and how suitable you are.”

  “What’s the catch?” Avan asked bluntly.

  “Somebody has to marry her, and somebody has to become Eminent Telstie. Why not a friend of ours?” Rimalin asked.

  “And what would you want in return?” Avan asked.

  “Your political influence, when you are Eminent and sit in the Noble Assembly in the Cupola. That wouldn’t be difficult, considering that we agree on most things. Besides that, to manage some of your money. You know how well I manage my own. There are affairs that need lots of capital but bring a huge return. We could help each other. And immediately, for we would introduce her to you immediately, and she is about to return to Irieth immediately, there is one small thing you could do for me.” Rimalin was sunk entirely below the water, only his eyes and nostrils showed. “I believe you are investigating property rights in the Skamble?”

  “I am . . .” Avan said, and waited.

  “Well, my friends and I might find it quite useful to know what you are going to decide. If the whole area is to come down, which seems the most likely thing, there will be fortunes to be made in demolition and rebuilding. It’s a slum at present, but if it could be reclassified so warehouses could be built there, it could become a goldlode. That’s where I’d advise you to invest your patrimony, if you want it to rival the wealth Gelener will bring you.”

  Avan could not speak. “Is it confidential?” he had asked Liralen, and the old clerk had replied “Tolerably.” In his first week in the Planning Office four dragons had tried to bribe him in the street. His contempt for them had been small in comparison for his contempt for any dragon who would accept such a bribe. The work of the government offices was done by such dragons as would not. Even Kest, whom Avan detested, even Kest, he knew, would not even consider accepting a bribe for an instant.

  The moment had stretched and stretched. He could not walk away, he was soaking in hot water and deep in Rimalin’s hospitality. There was even a guard with a pike to stop him getting out. And was it a bribe? They had offered him a great deal, but what it amounted to was an introduction to a maiden with possibilities, no more. Besides, Rimalin had not asked him to change his decision, merely to let him know what his decision would be. Avan’s decision was not yet made, but it already seemed more than likely that it would be the decision Rimalin wanted, to pull down the slum and have the Skamble made into warehousing to serve factories, river, and rail. It was only Sebeth’s protests about the welfare of the working dragons who made the Skamble their home that had been causing him to hesitate and consider some well-built but affordable housing as part of his plan. He could tell Rimalin all this and accept the introduction and the chances that came with it, and lose nothing. Sebeth was not truly his and never could be. If he were a rich Eminent he could give her a small fortune of her own and she could move to another city and pose as a widow.

  He opened his mouth, and he was almost ready to tell Rimalin all he knew about the Skamble. Then he remembered Liralen again, the first day he had gone to the Office for the Planning and Beautification of Irieth, directly after he had made his oath of service. “If ever you do accept a bribe, don’t think that will be the end of it. Even if nobody finds out, which isn’t likely, the person who has given it to you will know, and will accept more, and be able to blackmail you into giving more because of the existence of the bribe. And you will know, and you will have to wake up on your bribe every morning and live with yourself knowing how you got it.”

  “I can’t tell you,” Avan said, his teeth jarring together as he spoke. “I have sworn an oath that I will not do such things. Besides, I have little desire to marry a stranger for position.”

  “That’s exactly what you need to do,” Ketinar said. “You can’t afford to have that sort of scruples, in your position.”

  “Scruples are for parsons, who are Immune,” Rimalin growled.

  Avan stood, dripping. To his relief, Ketinar called a servant to dry his scales. “I think I’d better go,” he said.

  Ketinar walked to the door with him. Rimalin remained in the water. “What a pity,” she said, when she had made her farewells. “I expect there’s some maiden somewhere you’re in love with, and though it doesn’t show for men as it does for us, sometimes it’s just as permanent a change.”

  Avan was grateful she took it so well. Nevertheless, as he flew home he did not expect to receive any more invitations from the Rimalins, nor ever to see Ketinar again.

  38. DAVERAK CONSULTS HIS ATTORNEY

  The Illustrious Daverak had occasionally chanced to come to Irieth out of season before this, but had never before been forced to spend several days there when he would have preferred to be in the country. Now, on a chill Freshwinter morning that would have been perfect for hunting, he had to knot his tail waiting in an overheated attorney’s office, and then deal with irritating detail. The affair of the writ was more troublesome and time consuming than he had imagined. His attorney, Mustan, believed it would be possible to defeat it, but not as easily as Daverak would prefer. It seemed it would be necessary to go to court and have a judgment. The attorney wrote at once to all Bon’s children, demanding statements and evidence.

  “It isn’t as clear-cut as you seem to think,” Mustan said, pushing his eyeglasses closer to his eyes as he read his own notes. He was a young dragon, barely twenty feet long, but rising in position. Daverak had once been served by the long-established firm of Talerin and Fidrak, as had his father and grandfather before him. He had met Mustan at a party in Irieth, in season, several years before, and been completely won over by his energy and knowledge of the world. Slowly, over the next few years he had come to entrust all his business to him, first his investments and then almost everything, until Talerin and Fidrak did no more than the most routine parts of the management of the estate of Daverak. It was barely thirty years since Daverak had begun working with Mustan, but he had come to trust him completely. Even now he had no doubt of Mustan’s competence, nor of his honesty. But for the first time, as Mustan questioned him closely on the affair, he did not experience complete confidence in his attorney’s abilities. He wasn’t sure Mustan saw things as he did. He wondered if he might have been better with an old established firm like Talerin and Fidrak after all, in such a delicate family matter as this. Yet he had entrusted Mustan with the affair of his marriage settlement and never twitched a claw.

  “It would be a clearer case if the parson at his deathbed hadn’t been his son,” Mustan said, glancing up.

  “There was another parson, one Freld or Frelt. My wife will know the name, she knew him. He judged the case at the time.”

  When Daverak had explained everything about the matter, Mustan sighed, and threw a little more coal on the fire, although Daverak found the little room already intolerably hot and close. “That will help show you had right on your side when you acted. If Freld or whatever his name is will come to court, it will help. Speak to him about it when you get the chance, perhaps even invite him to dinner if that wouldn’t be too onerous. We’ll need his goodwill.”

  “I’ll speak to him,” Daverak said, though he regarded Frelt as a social inferior.

  “But he’s useful as a witness, not a parson. The parson who was with Bon is the only one who can help show his intention, and that is Penn, and he will speak against you from what you say.”

  “He as good as admitted at the time that Bon didn’t mention it. And he won’t go back on that now if he knows what’s good for him,” Daverak said, allowing a little flame to show in his throat.

  “He is a parson, and Immune,” Mustan said, looking a little shocked.

  “I didn’t mean anything improper,” Daverak said. “Just that he knows his preferment is dependent on family influence.”

  “I thought it was rather dependent upon this—” Mustan looked
at his notes. “This Benandi family, to whom he has allied himself?”

  “They will not like to hear of him speaking against his own family,” Daverak said, irritated by this quibbling.

  “Well, whatever he says, I’ll make sure we have a very experienced Pleader in court to question him about it. I was thinking of retaining Dignified Jamaney.”

  Daverak looked at him blankly, and the attorney sighed again.

  “Dignified Jamaney is one of the best Pleaders in Irieth,” he explained. “He can make eighty-foot Marshal Augusts weep like dragonets and proud Exalts admit their faults. He’s expensive, but with him on our side, we have a much better chance of overcoming.”

  “But surely we don’t need to resort to such tactics,” Daverak said, repelled. “We have a good case. The will speaks of treasure, not of his body. They are being totally unreasonable.”

  “It depends entirely on how the jury see it,” Mustan said, sitting back and resting both claws on his stomach. “Not the judges, in this case, the jury. The question is old Bon’s intention. How you see matters isn’t important if they can show that Bon saw them the way his sons seem to, do you see? Bon was a Dignified, and he held land, and he was your father-in-law, but he seems to have been a vulgar old fellow for all that. If it can be shown that he meant treasure in the vulgar sense, including his body, the judgment could go against you.”

  “That’s absurd,” Daverak said, half-decided to take this business back to the old established firm.

  “Absurd or not, that’s what we have to avoid. Splitting the family unity will help. If your wife and her sister who is your ward—” he picked up his notes again.

  “Haner,” Daverak said. “The Respected Haner Agornin. She’ll be sensible about it.”

  “Yes. Good. If they, and especially if the other sister, the one who is at Benandi, speak for your side, then Avan will have very little case. But if all the children agree as to Bon’s intention, then I don’t know. There is a strong feeling among the common dragons that the bodies of their parents are the one bit of dragon-flesh they will reliably come to consume, that this is what makes them different from the servant class, who never get any at all and never grow more than seven foot long in their lives. Now in a trial in Daverak this wouldn’t be a problem, the jurors would all be your own farmers. But the writ was issued here in Irieth, so it definitely will. The jury are selected from the free population of the city. Considering the free population of Irieth, that means you may get a clerk, but to get someone Respectable would be a wonder. The majority of the seven will be common workers. They will be against you on principle.”

  Daverak sat back, almost knocking his shoulders on the wall. He hated the cramped office where he had to sit curled around, he hated the law for being so inconsiderate of the feelings of the Illustrious, he hated Mustan for knowing more about the business than he did, and he hated Avan for making the whole thing necessary. “Engage Dignified Jamaney then,” he said. “Do whatever you think best. You have a free claw. Spend what you need. But Avan must be utterly defeated, he must learn that you cannot treat the Illustrious Daverak this way.”

  Mustan knew that blows to pride were as stinging as any other blows, so he merely made another note. “I’ll have to talk to the Blessed Penn Agornin,” he said. “I’ll ask him to come and see me. I’ll talk to Hathor too, Avan’s attorney, and see if I can gather anything about what he really wants.”

  “Do that,” Daverak said, feeling almost faint from the close air in the room.

  “Will you be in town for another few days? I’d like to talk to you again when I have some more information.”

  “No, I have to go back to Daverak,” Daverak said, knowing he couldn’t stand any more of the city. “My wife is in a delicate condition.”

  “I’ll write to you then,” Mustan said, standing and opening the door. “I’ll let you know as soon as there’s a date for the hearing. There will probably be two hearings, a few weeks apart.”

  “And I want you to bring a case against Avan,” Daverak said.

  “What for?” Mustan asked, taking off his glasses.

  “Harassment. Distressing my wife when she is expectant. Willfully annoying me.”

  “Better to win this case first, and then go forward with a case like that,” Mustan said. “Besides, if he loses this case he’ll lose all he has, without need for a countersuit. We’ll be able to claim our costs, and they’re likely to be high. He’ll likely lose his position in his office as well—what is it, the Land Office? The Planning Office? They don’t like scandal in those sorts of places. In which case he’ll be out on the streets and not worth pursuing in court.”

  “Good,” said Daverak. “We’ll leave that for now. But get on with the other, and write to tell me how it’s going. I’ll come up to Irieth again if I must.”

  “You’ll probably not need to come up before the case,” Mustan said, nodding to Daverak as he squeezed out of the door. When his patron had gone, Mustan sat down with his papers before him and shook his head over them. “No telling how this one will go,” he murmured to himself.

  Out in the street, Daverak could breathe more freely. Mustan’s office was in the fashionable Toris quarter, not far from Avan’s workplace, had he known it. He strolled down the Promenade towards his club. He would tell them he was leaving and set off for home tonight. He wondered again about going back to Talerin and Fidrak. He wasn’t sure that Mustan sympathized with him. He gave Mustan his business precisely because they had always been in agreement about the way to do things. Now, when it was most important, Mustan didn’t seem to feel that Avan had done anything so terrible in taking him to law. Still, he had put the matter in Mustan’s claws, and taking it out might be difficult, if Mustan wanted to make difficulties. Certainly it would take time, and it was certain that he would have to explain the whole wretched business again. No, he would let Mustan get on with it. He would have a reviving dinner alone in his club—none of his friends would be in Irieth now—spend the night there comfortably and then when morning came get out of the city as fast as his wings would bear him.

  39. A SECOND PROPOSAL

  In Daverak’s absence, Berend had continued to entertain, if anything with more enthusiasm than when her lord was by her. Haner’s warnings that she should conserve her energy for her clutch were overruled or even scoffed at. This was Berend’s second clutch, she felt she knew all about it by now. She had produced two eggs, which sat in splendor in the gold-lined hatchery, wrapped in fleeces. She was, however, still in a delicate condition in expectation of a third. Since the loss of Lamerak she had stopped boasting of her ability to produce clutches of three, and indeed confessed one night to Haner that she would have been as glad to stop at two this time.

  One evening when Haner slipped into the Speaking Room before dinner, she found Berend deep in conversation with the Dignified Londaver. His parents were also present, as were a few others of their neighbors. Many of those Berend liked best were away, making up hunting parties in remote locations. As Haner made herself attentive to the elderly Exalt Londaver, she could not help noticing that Berend and young Londaver kept turning their heads to look at her.

  After dinner, and after sponging, Dignified Londaver suggested to Haner that as it was such a fine night they should go out and look at the stars. The elder members of the party smiled at the thought, and, Haner suspected, at the predictable nature of it. She herself could not for the moment tell what she felt. She had once been excited by Londaver’s attention, but then when once it had been withdrawn she could not feel the same excitement again. Nevertheless she followed him out to the topmost ledge and opened her eyes to the winter sky, which was magnificent. The stars hung against the blackness in their multicolored profusion, like a spilt box of gems. Haner picked out the familiar constellations. The Great Beef was rising, with the Little Veal at her tail. The Winter Princess held out her hand in blessing.

  “Aren’t they glorious?” Londaver asked.

&n
bsp; “Oh yes,” Haner agreed.

  “And think of our ancestors seeing them just the same and finding all those shapes in them. I’ve thought of that since you told me about that, that time, you remember, when you were staying here before?” Londaver spoke as if he had not seen her since her visit to Daverak when they had danced and looked at the stars, as if the polite but formal intercourse they had shared in the last months had never happened. She did not feel at all romantic, she felt angry.

  “So what brings you out under them tonight, Dignified?” she asked, as coldly as she could.

  “The beauty of your eyes to outshine them,” he said, awkwardly.

  Haner wanted to bite him. “Don’t you think this is ridiculous, when you’ve been ignoring me all this time?” she asked.

  “Ignoring you?” He was confused. “I wasn’t. I always liked you.”

  “I’d respect you a great deal more if you spoke the truth,” Haner said. “Now I believe I shall return to the Speaking Room, there’s a chill in the air.”

  “Only on your side,” Londaver said. “Honestly, I’ve always liked you. But you know I’m a poor dragon, living on what my parents allow me, and they’re not really rich. I couldn’t afford to marry where there wasn’t a little dowry to ease things along. After your father died I kept my distance because I hadn’t made any promises and I didn’t want to make any I couldn’t keep. I tried to put you out of my mind, but I always cared for you. Now Berend tells me things have changed again. She says Daverak will treat you as a daughter and dig out some extra gold to pad out what your father left you, to make it the same as hers was. That’s uncommonly good of Daverak, and it means I’m free to think of you again.”