Tooth and Claw

by Jo Walton

  Penn would not speak about the real risks in the ballroom where they might be overheard. “Can we visit you tomorrow to talk about it?” Sher asked.

  “Not tomorrow, no,” Daverak said, and softened it slightly, remembering Sher’s rank, which counted with him as August Fidrak’s did with the Exalt. “Tomorrow is Firstday.”

  “I think it is important enough to visit you even on Firstday,” Sher said.

  “Oh very well,” Daverak said. “Come to see me in the evening. Come and dine. But I warn you, I have no intention of changing my mind.”

  Then the dancing began. The party continued until the sky was beginning to lighten, and everyone agreed as they left that it had been the best entertainment held in Irieth for many months.

  57. A THIRD DEATHBED AND A SIXTH CONFESSION

  It was Firstday, and in the usual way of things Sebeth would have accompanied Avan to church in the morning. There she would have made her public devotions, and while we know that her private devotions were quite otherwise, the world did not. On this particular Firstday, the eleventh of Deepwinter, the day before the Second Hearing of Avan’s case, she prepared herself as she would for church, with a flat formal cap of navy blue trimmed with white fleece.

  “Do you know where your book of prayers is?” she asked. “I’m going now.”

  “I’m nearly ready,” Avan grumbled.

  “I’m not going with you today,” she said, straightening her cap unnecessarily.

  “Aren’t you coming to church?” Avan asked, surprise whirling in his golden eyes.

  “Not today,” Sebeth said, in the way she had learned of closing off discussion.

  Avan closed his mouth. She had always gone to church with him before, ever since she had come to live with him. They had never talked about religion, but she had indicated amused approval of his choice of the parson famed for his short sermons. She tried not to look nervous. “See you later,” she said, and left him gazing after her.

  She knew he would not follow. She trusted Avan for that. They had kept to their understanding for a long time now. It was very cold outside. The snow was hard and slippery under her feet. She walked briskly towards the river, breathing shallowly, wishing she had not agreed to Blessed Calien’s entreaties. His soul, she thought, his soul could be saved to go on to new life or it could perish utterly, and if she could do something to save it, however bad he had been in this life, however much penance he would bear in his new life, she should. He was dying. This would be his last chance.

  Telstie House was on the riverfront, in the Southwest Quarter. She was almost surprised that she remembered the way. She had avoided it for years, walking purposefully on other streets if her business had taken her in that direction. She had not been here since she was a maiden barely out of the care of a nanny. It looked a little smaller, a little shabbier, the snow on the lintels looked unfamiliar, she had never been here in winter. She almost walked on past. It was not too late. But Blessed Calien had done so much for her. She owed him this, as he had said. What was an hour or two to her? An attempt to save his soul? She did not forgive, but he was dying, and his soul, think of his soul. It would cost her nothing to try. For Calien’s sake, then, not for her own or her father’s, she asked admittance.

  The servant was a stranger. “Your name?” he asked, politely enough, but coldly. “Eminent Telstie isn’t well and the house is in uproar. I don’t know if anyone can see you.”

  “Sebeth,” she said. “Eminent Telstie sent word that he wanted to see me.” She still did not know by what channels he had sent, that it had come to her by way of her priest.

  The servant looked at her differently, as if assessing her. She couldn’t tell if he recognized her name or was simply reacting to the lack of a title and family name. She was dressed like the respectable clerk she was. He couldn’t tell anything from that. She saw his eyes linger on the marks on her wings where once she had been tightly bound. “Wait, I’ll ask,” he said, and left her alone above ground in the hallway while he hurried downwards. It was too late to flee, Sebeth told herself sternly. Much too late. She should never have let herself be persuaded to come. Why did she care if he was dying?

  The servant came back. “Come this way,” he said. As she followed him down, she thought for the first time that she might have to deal with her brothers and sisters and uncle and cousins and not only with the dying dragon she had come to see. If she had left it too late, if he was too bad to see her, she would leave immediately.

  “Exalt Sebeth Telstie,” the servant announced, the name strange and familiar at once. So he had known her. She swept in past him, as if she were indeed the Exalt she was by right of birth.

  It was a sleeping cave, domed, plain stone. He was lying curled uncomfortably on his gold. His scales were beginning to fall already, he could not have much time left. His eyes were faded from the brilliant blue they had been, the blue hers still were. They met hers as she took a step inside. She stood completely still. “Sebeth, my daughter,” he said, as the servant retreated.

  “No,” she said, all the anger she had been trying to fight down pushing its way to the surface. “You lost the right to call me that a long time ago. You have dragonets enough, remember?”

  His eyes closed. She thought she would go. Then they opened again and met hers, whirling slowly in the pale blue depths. “I asked you to come so you could forgive me that,” he said.

  “Forgive you for abandoning me in the caves of kidnappers and rapists?” she asked. “How could anyone, how could any maiden brought up as I had been, ever forgive someone who owed them a father’s care for that?”

  “I did not mean to abandon you. I refused to pay the ransom because I believed I could rescue you. I thought I knew where they were holding you. I planned to follow them back and free you. But they had fooled me. When I reached the cave it was empty.”

  She weighed this, considering.

  “Don’t you believe me?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said, honestly. “It hurt me so much that you had said that, that you had left me there. It almost doesn’t matter why.”

  “I tried to contact them again, but there was no way of finding them,” he said. “I thought that you must be dead.”

  “Not dead,” she said. “Death might have been preferable, but I have survived.”

  “I won’t ask how you have lived,” he said. “I can’t bear to know. I see the marks on your wings, and I won’t ask you how you come to be free now. You didn’t come to me. I thought you might come to me, if you were alive and free.”

  “You had dragonets enough,” Sebeth repeated, through tears that she had not known she was weeping.

  “I thought you might come when your brother Ladon died,” he said, ignoring that. Sebeth stared at a gold cup beneath her father’s foot. She had seen that cup when she was a hatchling playing with her mother’s gold. On the side turned down into the other gold now, she knew it was inscribed with an S, and her big brother Ladon, the oldest, the heir, the special one, who was August Ladon Telstie, when the rest of them were nothing but Exalts and Exalteds, had said it must be an S for Sebeth. It was the first letter she had read.

  “I didn’t know Ladon was dead,” she said, as calmly as she might.

  “On the border,” her father said. “Ten years ago now. You are the only child I have left. I am dying, Sebeth.”

  Three brothers and two sisters, all dead, without her knowing? But why would she know? She had sought no knowledge of them, shunned it rather. “I didn’t know,” she repeated, feeling stupid.

  “I was an arrogant fool not to ransom you,” Eminent Telstie said. “But will you believe it was folly and not cruelty?”

  “I wish I had known that all these years,” she said. “Forgive me, father, for believing that of you.”

  “I will forgive you if you will forgive me for failing to find you,” he said. They were both weeping now.

  Sebeth embraced her father and forgave him, and he for
gave her, but even as she wept and asked forgiveness, somewhere inside her was a hard shell, and inside the shell was a self who was not sure if she believed the story her father told her. He had not sought for her until he was dying, after all, until all his other children were dead.

  “Now I must call the attorney and draw up a will to make you my heir,” her father said. “You must marry your cousin Alwad. He will take you, whatever disgrace you have been in, if he knows the title and the demesne goes with you.”

  “No,” Sebeth said. She could remember Alwad as a mischievous hatchling. “I will not be married off like soiled goods. I have been in no disgrace, I have done nothing wrong. I fell into misfortune, and rescued myself. I have been working as a respectable clerk. I have a—” she hesitated, thinking how to describe Avan. “A partner. Not a husband, but more than a lover. He cares about me. I have honest work.”

  “You have done much, much better than I imagined. I see the marks of binding. Like the Honorable Lords of old, you have risen on your own wings. It makes me proud. Who is your partner? A dragon of Respectable rank you say? Gently born?”

  “He is Avan Agornin, son of the Dignified Bon Agornin.” Sebeth thought of the way she had come up from the depths, a finger-length at a time, from the servitude of a streetwalker to being Avan’s clerk and partner.

  Tears sprang to her father’s eyes again at the name. “Bon Agornin was a friend of mine when I was a dragonet. I have scarcely seen him since he left my parents’ demesne, but I wept when I heard that he had died recently. He was a good and worthy dragon, and like you, he rose by his own merit. You have said his son cares for you, do you care for him?”

  It had begun as something for her advantage. She thought of Avan that morning, not asking her the questions that must have burned in his mouth. “I have come to care for him a great deal,” she said, precisely, knowing it true only as she said it.

  “And is he a strong dragon?”

  “He is employed at the Planning Office,” she said. “He is rising there. He is thirty feet long, but he will grow.”

  “Then if he will change his name to yours and become a Telstie, marry him and bring him the demesne as your dowry.”

  “Do you mean it? You hardly know either of us.” Sebeth could hardly believe it. “And the scandal on the name . . .”

  “There will be no scandal. You will be Eminence Telstie. That is enough to enable you to outstare anyone. There are few enough advantages to rank, but that is one.”

  “My cousins?”

  “I will have my attorneys settle everything so there can be no dispute. Avan Agornin. Dignified, you say?”

  “Respectable,” Sebeth corrected. “And if he will not marry me?”

  “Then he’s a fool,” her father said. “If he will not, you should marry your cousin, or whoever you choose. But marry. You cannot hope to hold the demesne without. Telstie is too big to leave to a—” he hesitated. She was not maiden, wife, or widow, there were no words for what she was.

  “I will find a husband if Avan will not agree,” she said. Then she stopped, her mouth open, remembering as she agreed to her father’s wishes, what Calien had said about her father’s soul being the most important thing. She hesitated. He had not known what her father would offer her. Safety, marriage, rank—dared she risk it now? It was not real enough to her to seem a risk. She swallowed. “Father, one more thing. I survived, I rose in the world as I could, with the help of the True Church. Will you see a priest to confess, Father? For me?”

  “You were too young to know the True Church,” Eminent Telstie said.

  “Too young? How could I be too young? The priests were there in the streets where the most degraded work, teaching me their way. The parsons were not there, they were safe inside their churches, living on their dues, while the priests were helping us. I know what I learned, and I learned that confession and absolution free the soul, when all else is dross, and that Camran was a Yarge who died to bring the word of the gods to dragons.” Sebeth briefly felt like one of the great martyrs of old, like Sainted Gerin, who bore witness to the truth of religion despite the risk of losing all earthly things.

  “You misunderstand me. I meant you were too young for me to teach you all of that before you were captured,” Eminent Telstie said, drily. “I have confessed to my own priest, and will confess again if I am given time. The True Church has been a long belief in our family, held very close, very secretly. Your priest might have known, but names of other believers are not spoken, not even whispered.”

  “It is not illegal, now,” she said. “You could embrace it in public. For everyone to know that an Eminent Lord was a True Believer would be a great comfort.”

  “It is not illegal now because those of us who kept quietly to the true ways have worked to bring that situation about,” he said. “Besides, legal or not, dare you flaunt it openly as a clerk?” His eyes seemed brighter. “You are my daughter and my true heir,” he said. “If you wish to live openly in the True Faith, do so, but consult the priests first, they have counselled me to silence for many years. Now, tell them to call my attorney. And you should speak to your—partner. To Avan.”

  “I will,” Sebeth said.

  “But stay here,” he said. “Don’t go. I don’t know how long I have. I will see the attorney, and the priest. But stay with me for this little time I have. My daughter. A true Telstie, rising on your own merit and finding the Church on your own. You will grace the rank of Eminence.”

  She embraced him then, without hesitation. She still did not know whether or not he had betrayed her, but it no longer mattered. “I will stay with you until the end,” she said.

  58. A THIRD DINNER PARTY AND

  A SEVENTH CONFESSION

  After three days shut in her room, desperate for food and water, Haner would have admitted to anything and agreed to anything. Her vision was beginning to fade. She was no longer strong enough to shout. She had her gold, and it gave her comfort lying down on it or turning each piece in the dark. Berend died on this gold, and so will I, she thought, and Daverak killed both of us. She prayed, in her heart, for all the gods to help her. She thought of Londaver, and of Selendra. She prayed for Lamith’s soul. She wondered if Daverak would let her out for the court case, or whether she would be dead by then. She had no way to tell how long it had been.

  As Penn and Sher had been told that her illness was minor, they were surprised not to see her at dinner. “Her maid is looking after her in her room,” Daverak said. To Penn’s relief, Frelt was not present either. “He has gone to the evening service in the Cupola with Blessed Telstie,” Daverak explained. He led them in at once to the dining room, where they were served with indifferently fresh swine.

  “Will Haner be well enough to testify?” Sher asked, trying not to gag on the sweetish smell of meat that has been dead for days. Penn, beside him, was too nervous to either eat or speak.

  “I’m sure she will,” Daverak said. “I’m planning to talk to her later tonight about that.”

  “The Court would accept a doctor’s certificate,” Sher said. He thought Daverak looked almost ill himself, full of nervous excitement.

  “I haven’t called a doctor,” he said. “It isn’t bad enough for that.”

  “To be ill for four days together isn’t like Haner,” Penn said, rousing himself. “I’ll look in on her myself later.”

  “There’s no need, you’ll just disturb her,” Daverak said.

  “We’ll see her tomorrow in any case,” Sher said, deciding it was better not to annoy Daverak on this issue now. “We must speak to you about that.”

  “There’s nothing to say.” Daverak spread his claws. “I told you yesterday. Avan is attacking me, attacking my perfectly justified behavior. If he didn’t think it justified, as you argued with me at the time, Penn, then he should have said then, or said something to me later.”

  “He seems to have managed to distress you considerably,” Sher said, trying to sound sympathetic.


  “He has destroyed all my peace, and probably driven my wife to her death with worry,” Daverak said. “Before all this started I was a calm and contented dragon, taking care of my demesne, enjoying Irieth in season, watching my family grow. Now I am a mass of nerves.”

  “Over such a little thing, really,” Sher said, consolingly.

  “It’s not little,” Daverak snapped, blood from the swine dripping down his jaws. “It questions my integrity. I will not have things like that said about me.”

  “Well, we don’t condone saying them,” Sher said. “We just want you to agree not to call Penn.”

  “But Penn’s evidence is central,” Daverak said, looking at Penn, who had not touched his meat. “Penn was at his father’s deathbed. Penn can tell us what his father said then.”

  “If Penn does that, his career and prospects will be ruined and he will be disgraced,” Sher said.

  Daverak didn’t seem to hear for a moment, there was silence and all three waited. “I’m sorry to hear it,” Daverak said after a moment.

  “You surely don’t want your brother-in-law, the uncle of your dragonets, disgraced and thrown out of the Church?” Sher asked.

  Penn cast his eyes down and ground his teeth audibly.

  Daverak frowned. “But why would he be?”

  “Because I heard my father’s confession on his deathbed, and gave him absolution,” Penn said, very quietly. “They will call me an Old Believer and cast me out.”

  “Do you have to tell them that?” Daverak asked.

  Sher and Penn looked at each other, eyes wide. “I beg your pardon?” Sher asked.

  “Why mention it? Why not just tell them that Avan is wrong, it wasn’t what your father meant.”

  “I cannot lie, Daverak,” Penn said. “Even if I could lie outright like that, I will be under oath. They will ask me exactly what my father said. It would be perjury.”