Seraphina

by Rachel Hartman

  “If I am very familiar with the performer, yes,” I said carefully, unsure what he was getting at.

  He puffed out his cheeks and looked at the sky. “Do not think me mad, grausleine. I hev heardt you play before, in dreamink, in …” He gestured toward his blond head.

  “I didt not know what I was hearink,” he said, “but I believedt in it. It was like crumbs on the forest path: I followedt. They leadt me here where I can buildt my machine, and where I am less the, eh, vilishparaiah … sorry, my Gorshya not goodt.”

  His Goreddi was better than my Samsamese, but vilishparaiah sounded like a cognate. The “paraiah” part did, anyway. I did not dare ask him about being half dragon; as much as I hoped that was the link between all my grotesques and me, I did not yet have proof. I said, “You followed the music—”

  “Your music!”

  “—to escape persecution?” I spoke gently, trying to convey sympathy and let him know I understood all about the difficulties of being a half-breed.

  He nodded vigorously. “I am a Daanite,” he said.

  “Oh!” I said. That was unexpected information, and I found myself reevaluating everything Viridius had said about his protégé, the way his eyes had gleamed.

  Lars stared intently at the remains of his lunch, a veil of shyness drawn over him again. I hoped he hadn’t mistaken my silence for disapproval. I tried to coax him back out: “Viridius is so proud of your megaharmonium.”

  He smiled but did not look up.

  “How did you calculate the acoustics for that contraption?”

  He raised his gray eyes sharply. “Acoustics? Is simple. But I needt somethink to write with.” I pulled a small charcoal pencil—a draconian innovation, rare in Goredd, but very useful—from the pocket of my surcoat. His lips twitched into a little smile and he started scrawling an equation beside him on the balustrade. He ran out of room to write as the notation approached his bum—he wrote sinister-handed—so he stood up on the railing, balancing like a cat, and wrote leaning over. He diagrammed levers and bellows, illustrated the resonant properties of types of wood, and elucidated his theory of how one might emulate the sounds of other instruments by manipulating wave properties.

  Everyone turned to look at the enormous and unexpectedly graceful man balancing on the balustrade, doubled over writing, gabbling about his megaharmonium in intermittent Samsamese.

  I grinned at him and marveled that anyone could possess such single-minded passion for a machine.

  A cadre of courtiers approached the bridge on horseback but found it difficult to cross with all the merchants and townspeople gaping at Lars’s antics. The gentlemen made a ruckus with their horses; people scampered out of their way to avoid being trampled. One courtier, dressed in rich black, smacked dawdling gawpers with his riding crop.

  It was Josef, Earl of Apsig. He didn’t notice me; his eye was fixed on Lars.

  Lars looked up, met the earl’s fierce glare, and went white.

  Goreddis claim that all Samsamese sounds like cursing, but Josef’s tone and body language left no doubt. He rode straight for Lars, gesticulating and shouting. I knew the words mongrel and bastard, and guessed the obscure halves of some compound words. I looked to Lars, horrified for him, but he stoically took the abuse.

  Josef drove his horse right up against the balustrade, making it difficult for Lars to keep his balance. The earl lowered his voice to a vicious whisper. Lars was strong enough to have pitched scrawny Josef right off his horse, yet he did nothing.

  I looked around, hoping someone would come to Lars’s aid, but no one on the crowded bridge made any move to help. Lars was my friend, for all that I’d known him two hours; I’d known Loud Lad for five years, and he’d always been a favorite. I sidled up to the horse and tapped at the Earl of Apsig’s black-clad knee, gingerly at first and then harder when he ignored me.

  “Hey,” I said, as if I could talk to an earl that way. “Leave him alone.”

  “This is not your affair, grausleine,” Josef sneered over his starched ruff, his pale hair flopping into his eyes. He wheeled his horse, driving me back. Unintentionally—perhaps—his horse’s hindquarters swung around and knocked Lars into the freezing river.

  Everyone took off running then—some for the river’s edge, some to put as much distance between themselves and this fracas as possible. I rushed down the steps to the quayside. Rivermen were already shoving off in rowboats and coracles, extending poles over the choppy water, shouting directions to the flailing figure. Lars could swim, it seemed, but was hindered by his clothing and the cold. His lips were tinged blue; he had trouble getting his hands to close around the proffered poles.

  Someone finally hooked him and reeled him in to shore, where old river ladies had hauled piles of blankets off their barges. A riverman brought out a brazier and stoked it high, adding a tang of charcoal to the fishy breeze.

  I felt a pricking behind my eyes, moved by the sight of people pulling together to help a stranger. The bitterness I’d carried since morning, since the incident at St. Willibald’s Market, melted away. People feared the unfamiliar, certainly, but they still had tremendous capacity for kindness when one of their own—

  Except that Lars wasn’t one of their own. He looked normal, except for his height and girth, but what lay under his black jerkin? Scales? Something worse? And here were the well-meaning, easily terrified townsfolk about to strip off his soaked clothing. He was shyly evading an old woman’s helping hands even now. “Come, lad,” she laughed, “ye need not be bashful wi’ me. What hain’t I seen, in my fifty years?”

  Lars shivered—big shivers, to match the rest of him. He needed to get dry. I could think of only one thing to do, and it was slightly mad.

  I leaped up on one of the wharf piles, cried, “Who wants a song?” and launched into a stirring a capella rendition of “Peaches and Cheese”:

  The vagabond sun winks down through the trees,

  While lilacs, like memories, waft on the breeze,

  My friend, I was born for soft days such as these,

  To inhale perfume,

  And cut through the gloom,

  And feast like a king upon peaches and cheese!

  I’ll travel this wide world and go where I please,

  Can’t stop my wand’ring, it’s like a disease.

  My only regret as I cross the high seas:

  What I leave behind,

  Though I hope to find,

  My own golden city of peaches and cheese!

  People laughed and clapped, most of them keeping their eyes on me. It took Lars a minute to grasp that this was all the cover he was going to get. He turned modestly toward the river wall, a blanket draped over his shoulders, and began peeling off his clothes.

  He needed to move faster than that; this song only had five verses.

  I remembered the oud strapped across my back, pulled it around, and launched into an improvised interlude. People cheered. Lars stared at me again, to my irritation. Had he not believed I could play either? Thanks for all the faint praise, Viridius.

  Then, however, it was my turn to stare at Lars, because he appeared not to have anything odd about him at all. I spied no trace of silver on his legs, but he quickly covered them up with borrowed trousers. He kept the blanket draped across his shoulders as best he could until it slipped. I ogled his torso. Nothing.

  No, wait, there it was, on his right bicep: a slender band of scales running all the way around. From a distance it looked like a bracelet in the Porphyrian style; he’d even found a way to inlay it with colorful glass gems. It might be taken for jewelry, easily, by anyone not expecting to find scales.

  Suddenly I understood Dame Okra’s irritation with me. How easy life must be if that slender band was your only physical manifestation! And here I’d stood up in front of everybody and risked myself, when he’d barely anything to hide.

  I’ll ask my true love, and I’ll hope she agrees,

  How could she not, when I’m down on my knees?


  My Jill, say you will, and don’t be such a tease.

  When it’s time to eat,

  I say sweets to the sweet,

  My love, let your answer be peaches and cheese!

  I finished with a flourish. Lars was decent, in mismatched riverman’s garb only slightly too small. The crowd called for more, but I was done, my rush of panicked energy spent. All that remained was to figure out how to get off my perch; looking down now, I wasn’t sure how I’d gotten up. Desperation gives you a longer leap, apparently.

  A hand reached up to help me; I looked down to see the dark curls and merry eyes of Prince Lucian Kiggs.

  He smiled at the sheer absurdity of me, and I could not stop myself smiling back.

  I leaped down, not quite nimbly. “I was heading up to Castle Orison with the evening patrol,” said the prince. “Thought we’d stop and see what the commotion was—and the singing. That was nicely done.”

  Many people had cleared out with the arrival of this small party of Guardsmen; those who remained told our tale with gusto, as if it might replace Belondweg, our national epic. The eponymous Brutal Earl of Apsig victimizes an innocent clod on the bridge railing! A fair maidy tries to save him, heroic townsfolk fish him out of the drink, and then—triumphal music!

  Prince Lucian seemed to enjoy the tale. I was just glad I didn’t have to explain what I’d really been doing; it had seemed perfectly logical to everyone. Lars stood quietly, ignoring an officer who was attempting to question him.

  The frustrated officer reported back to the prince: “He has no interest in pursuing justice for this incident, Captain Kiggs.”

  “Find Earl Josef. I’ll speak to him about this. He can’t go knocking people into the river and riding off,” said Prince Lucian, waving a dismissal. His deputies departed.

  The sun was beginning to set and the breeze along the river had picked up. The prince faced my shivering friend. Lars was older and a head taller, but Prince Lucian stood like he was Captain of the Queen’s Guard. Lars looked like a little boy who wanted to sink into his boots. I was amazed at how far he succeeded.

  The prince spoke, his voice unexpectedly gentle: “You’re Viridius’s protégé.”

  “Yes,” said Lars, mumbling as a man must who’s sunk into his footwear.

  “Did you provoke the earl in some way?”

  Lars shrugged and said, “I was raisedt on his estate.”

  “That’s hardly a provocation, is it?” asked Prince Lucian. “Are you his serf?”

  Lars hesitated. “I hev spendt more than a year and a day away from his landts. I am legally free.”

  A question took root in my mind: if Lars had grown up on his estate, might Josef know Lars was half dragon? It seemed plausible, and Josef’s hostility made sense in light of his attitudes toward dragonkind. Alas, I could not ask in front of Lucian Kiggs.

  Prince Lucian looked disgusted. “Maybe a man can harass his former serfs in Samsam, but that is not how we conduct ourselves here. I will speak with him.”

  “I’dt rather you didt not,” said Lars. Prince Lucian opened his mouth to protest, but Lars cut him off. “I can go, yes?”

  The prince waved him along. Lars returned my pencil, slightly soggy, and held my gaze for a moment before he turned to go. I wished I could have embraced him, but I felt a peculiar reluctance to do so in front of the prince. We shared a secret, Lars and I, even if Lars didn’t know it yet.

  He climbed the stone steps up the Wolfstoot Bridge without a word. His broad shoulders sagged, as if under the burden of whole worlds we could not see.

  “But of course I might say anything, because you are quite far away just now,” said Prince Lucian, who had apparently been speaking to me for some time.

  “Sorry.” I tore my eyes away from Lars and gave the prince full courtesy.

  “We can dispense with some formality,” he said when I rose, his eyebrows raised in plain amusement. He put a hand to his crimson doublet, right over his heart, and said earnestly, “Right now I’m merely Captain of the Guard. Half courtesy is adequate, and you may call me Captain Kiggs—or simply Kiggs, if you will. Everyone else does.”

  “Princess Glisselda calls you Lucian,” I said breezily, covering my fluster.

  He gave a short laugh. “Selda’s an exception to everything, as you may have noticed. My own grandmother calls me Kiggs. Would you gainsay the Queen?”

  “I wouldn’t dare,” I said, trying to echo his levity. “Not about something this important.”

  “I should think not.” He gestured grandly toward the steps up the bridge. “If you’ve no objection, let us walk while we talk; I have to get back to Castle Orison.”

  I followed, unsure what he wished to speak with me about, but recalling that Orma had given me a task. I put a hand to the purse at my waist, but the little lizard figurine made me anxious, as if it might pop its head out without permission.

  How would this prince react if he saw it? Perhaps I could just tell him the story.

  A guildsman of the town watch stood on the balustrade as Lars had done, lighting lamps in anticipation of sunset; laughing merchants dismantled their stalls. Prince—Kiggs strolled through the thinning market crowd, perfectly at ease among them, as if he were simply another townsman. I started up the gently sloping Royal Road, but he gestured toward a narrow street, the more direct route. The road, not wide to begin with, narrowed even further above us; the upper stories cantilevered over the street, as if the houses were leaning together to gossip. A woman on one side might have borrowed a lump of butter from her neighbor on the other without leaving home. The looming buildings squeezed the sky down to a rapidly darkening ribbon.

  When the noise of the marketplace had faded and only the sound of his boots echoed up the street, Lucian Kiggs said, “I wanted to thank you for your intervention with the saarantrai the other evening.”

  It took me a moment to remember what he was talking about. Dame Okra beating me with a book had rather eclipsed the other events of that day.

  He continued: “No one else dared speak so plainly to Selda—not even I. I suffered the same paralysis she did, as if the problem might solve itself if we all refused to acknowledge it. But of course, Selda says you know a great deal about dragons. It seems she was right.”

  “You’re very kind to say so,” I said evenly, giving no hint of the anxious knot his words produced in my chest. I did not like him associating me with dragons. He was too sharp.

  “It raises questions, of course,” he said, as if he’d read my mind. “Selda said your knowledge comes from reading the treaty with your father. Maybe some of it does, but surely not all. Your comfort with saarantrai—your ability to talk to them without breaking out in a cold sweat—that’s not something one gains from studying the treaty. I’ve read the treaty; it makes you wary of them, rather, because it’s as full of holes as a Ducanahan cheese.”

  My anxious knot tightened. I reminded myself that the cheese of Ducana province was famously riddled with holes; he was making a simple analogy, not some veiled reference to Amaline Ducanahan, my fictional human mother.

  Kiggs looked up toward the purpling sky, his hands clasped behind his back like one of my pedantic old tutors, and said, “My guess is that it has something to do with your dragon teacher. Orma, was it?”

  I relaxed a little. “Indeed. I’ve known him forever; he’s practically family.”

  “That makes sense. You’ve grown easy with him.”

  “He’s taught me a lot about dragons,” I offered. “I ask him questions all the time; I am curious by nature.” It felt nice to be able to tell this prince something true.

  The street was so steep here that it had steps; he hopped up ahead of me like a mountain sheep. Speculus lanterns hung along this block; broken mirrors behind the candles cast dazzling flecks of light onto the street and walls. Beside them hung Speculus chimes, which Kiggs set ringing. We murmured the customary words beneath the bright cacophony: “Scatter darkness, scatter s
ilence!”

  Now seemed a reasonable moment to bring up Orma’s concern, since we had just been talking about him. I opened my mouth but didn’t get any further.

  “Who’s your psalter Saint?” asked the prince with no preamble.

  I had been mentally arranging what I should say about Orma, so for a moment I could not answer him.

  He looked back at me, his dark eyes shining in the fragmented lantern light. “You called yourself curious. We curious types tend to be children of one of three Saints. Look.” He reached into his doublet, extracting a silver medallion on a chain; it glinted in the light. “I belong to St. Clare, patron of perspicacity. You don’t appear obsessed with mystery, though, or social enough to be one of St. Willibald’s. I’m going to guess St. Capiti—the life of the mind!”

  I blinked at him in astonishment. True, my psalter had fallen open to St. Yirtrudis, the heretic, but St. Capiti had been my substitute Saint. It was close enough. “How did you—”

  “It’s in my nature to notice things,” he said. “Both Selda and I have noticed your intelligence.”

  I suddenly found myself warm from the exertion of climbing and cold at this reminder that he was so observant. I needed to be careful. His friendliness notwithstanding, the prince and I could not be friends. I had so many things to hide, and it was in his nature to seek.

  My right hand had wormed as far as it could under the binding of my left sleeve and was fingering my scaly wrist. That was exactly the sort of unconscious habit he would notice; I forced myself to stop.

  Kiggs asked after my father; I said something noncommittal. He solicited my opinion of Lady Corongi’s pedagogy; I expressed a small amount of polite concern. He gave his own opinion of the matter, in blunt and unflattering terms; I kept my mouth shut.

  The road flattened out, and soon we passed through the barbican of Castle Orison. The guards saluted; Kiggs inclined his head in return. I began to relax; we were almost home and this interview was surely over. We crunched across the gravel yard of Stone Court, not speaking. Kiggs paused at the steps and turned toward me with a smile. “Your mother must have been very musical.”