Novice Dragoneer

17

Her journey back was simplicity itself, compared to her first trip to the Serpentine. She flew west on Fespanarax, laden with little good-bye gifts from Chapalaine, the clothes and footwear she’d acquired one way and another, and her little supply of silver nuggets and bag of good Galantine tea. Fespanarax flew streamers that were both white, and white with red shields (with a gold stripe running diagonally across the red shield that indicated a Knight or Lady of the Order of Hospitals and Refuges, with Acts—the Baron and Azal had to look it up in a book but once they had the style, Taf and the Baroness had produced them in an afternoon).

Taf had been the only one to look truly upset at their departure, as without a dragon there would be no need next summer for the Tribals to stay longer than it took to scour Fespanarax’s bedding for traces and collect the loose scale Ileth had left for them, entrusted to Taf. Taf said she’d miss the dancing. The Baron was relieved to be free of the expense of feeding the dragon and devoting so many servants to his care. The Baroness was suspected to be with child again and looking as green as the riverbanks. All the children could not wait for the ceremony to be over (Ileth was still kicking herself for not counting them, as they’d been all lined up in family battalions for once), and the Baron’s head gardener and family were probably looking forward to getting that little house back.

The Baron had adopted into his family one of the orphaned children she had rescued. She was in the lineup with his other children, clean and well dressed, but standing a little apart from the others separated by a nurse. She presented Ileth with a black stick, probably from a birch. It had three red-and-white ribbons tied around it.

“What’s your name?” she asked the girl.

“We can’t get her to talk hardly, my lady,” the nurse said. “She says please when she wants something and thank you. Sometimes she’ll whisper what she needs to one of the other children her size. We don’t know her name either, none of us do. We’ve been calling her Arenis.”

“She knows her parents are dead, Lady,” a governess next to the nurse said. “Yet still she asks, especially in the mornings. We have to tell her they are dead all over again. Poor thing.”

“Arenis is a nice name,” Ileth said. “Thank you for the stick.”

“It’s from a bedtime story,” one of the Baron’s younger daughters volunteered.

“Say ‘Lady’ when you address someone of her order,” the governess said.

“Sorry, Lady Ileth, Arenis is a little girl from a story who floats down from a cloud. She thinks a herd of goats are her family for a while, until a kind King adopts her, Lady Ileth.” The child looked to the governess and received an approving smile and nod.

“The stick is something the village children do,” Taf explained. “It’s a wish stick. You wave it at festivals and weddings and such, or when an unusually significant person passes. When a wish comes true, you untie a ribbon. I suggested she do them in the colors of the Vales when I saw her looking for ribbons.”

Ileth caressed the little girl and hugged her. She picked her up and let her say good-bye to Fespanarax. “He’s the one you should be thanking, Arenis,” Ileth said. The girl touched the dragon’s ear.

“If I get bloodbug in my ear from the little rodent, I will become unpleasant about it,” Fespanarax said. But he said it in Drakine.

Ileth thanked the Baron and Baroness for their kindness once more from the saddle. The Baron bowed. “Lady,” he said.

They took off and Fespanarax made a slow climb to good flying air.

She was challenged once, quite early in their journey west. A dragon about half the size of Fespanarax rose from the ground as she approached the first low mountain chain west of the Baron’s lands. It had two riders in a tandem saddle designed to take advantage of the hump of muscle near the dragon’s wings: a man at the reins and another behind seated just a little above him with a crossbow. They waved her down.

Fespanarax was not keen to land after all the effort of getting to altitude, but he did. They found a mountain meadow and Ileth showed them the King’s letter. They were both familiar with Fespanarax; word just had not reached them that he’d been freed. They bowed to her and pledged to do whatever they could for a Lady of Hospitals and Refuges, with Acts, acclaimed by both King and Acclaim of the Court. Ileth asked if they would fly with her to the border so they didn’t have further trouble, and they announced that they’d be honored. They were as good as their word, though it meant a long and tiring flight.

The weather was good and Fespanarax was magnificent in his speed for such a large dragon. Perhaps his vast size and huge wings helped him along, much as the fastest swimmers were usually tall with a good reach. The Galantine escort fell farther and farther behind. They reached the border by afternoon and set down on the Republic side for a meal with the border guards. Luckily one of them was the same as on her outbound flight, and another veteran recognized Fespanarax. They had a meal with them and as Fespanarax was feeling well (but hungry; there wasn’t nearly enough meat for a dragon, as the guards ate mostly beans and pea-potato mash), he seemed willing to try for the Serpentine, even though they might not reach it before night.

When she hit the Tonne, unmistakable in its width, she turned north. The weather grew colder and colder as they moved north into growing darkness. The mountains to the west looked achingly familiar.

“If it’s clear, you can see the lighthouse a long way off,” Fespanarax said. “I see sort of a haze that may be it.”

“Will you be glad to—glad to return?”

“Eating ore and doing odd jobs for humans,” Fespanarax said. “I was tired of it before. But perhaps the activity will engage me more than I think. I look forward to being able to dine on the reward from your family for some time.”

“About—about that.”

“I tease you, Ileth. I know you are poor. Getting me out of the dull routine of Galantine country will have to be enough.”

As he spoke, Ileth felt a stiffness coming down from his neck. She wondered if he’d been rehearsing that little speech in his head. It didn’t sound at all like Fespanarax.

For a while they had flocks of migratory birds on their spring flight north along the wide Tonne keeping them company, and eagles. It was a sight to remember, the birds in their thousands, hundreds of little wedge formations. They summered somewhere in the flat lake country north of the bay she’d grown up on. Most of them would, anyway. The flocks dropped well below the dragon and avoided the eagles. Some of the eagles came up, curious, drifted for some moments in the dragon’s wake, and then went back to their fishing.

They passed the falls, vague but loud in the dark, and the air grew colder still. She was hungry, but hunger was an old friend. You were sharper when you were hungry.

Fespanarax was right. They did see the lighthouse a long way off. They passed the cliff she’d once idly considered jumping from. Who was that girl? That Ileth should have confided in more friends and learned the virtues of patience. If her time at the Baron’s had taught her anything, it was patience.

“We’ll land on the up end,” Fespanarax called. “I feel like I deserve a walk across the bridge, after all these years.”

They started in from on high and circled slowly down, giving those on the ground plenty of time to know a dragon was coming in. Ileth’s flight training didn’t go so far as to know how to signal recently released prisoner returning, if such a thing existed, but she did know how to wave a stiff arm down, the signal to other dragoneers that she was about to land.

Fespanarax glided and alighted well on the road just outside the Pillar Rocks. A greeting party assembled.

“He’s huge. What dragon is that?” an apprentice asked. It was good to see his white sash again. Even the air felt familiar.

“What do those streamers mean, I wonder,” another voice in the crowd asked.

“Fespanarax. Has to be,” said an older Guard with a sergeant’s decorated pike. “I’d know that craggy head, never mind the size. Finally back from the Baronies.”

“This is news,” another Guard said. The older one gestured at one of the novices, and he ran off toward the Masters’ Hall.

“Who’s that on him?” asked a wingman who’d emerged from the quarters in the wall to see the arrival.

She recognized the speaker as Sideburns from the party. His facial hair was thicker now and he’d put on some height. “I know her. It’s Vor Claymass’s little piece of novice from the party, the one who got tossed into the dancers.”

“Oh, yes, Ileth, slayer of Gorgantern. I do remember her,” the older Guard said.

“Ever seen a walk across the bridge?” Fespanarax asked.

“No,” Ileth said. “What is that?”

“Oh, yes. You’re young, aren’t you? I forget. The armistice. Well, you walk before me. If we had any trophies, you’d carry them. How would you represent surviving years’ worth of the Baron’s discourse and courtesies with a trophy?”

“A fussy r-rooster?”

“Well done, Ileth. You’re developing a true dragon wit. I’d say peacock, but I don’t imagine you’ve seen those. Good eating. Too bad you’ll return to your dull humans. Well, as there are no roosters about, we shall proceed bearing only honor.”

Fespanarax raised his head. “All right, you scoundrels, you have returning heroes here. A Galantine Lady, no less. Line the Long Bridge and show some leg running.”

Novices and apprentices were duly dispatched. Ileth accepted a bucket of water and let Fespanarax drain it. She was thirsty, but she could wait. She’d had a Galantine water bottle for the trip.

“What’s in here?” Ileth asked, tapping the case Fespanarax bore.

“Grooming tools that belonged to me and some of my odds and ends. There are some precious metals so I put them under metal seal. I can break it easily enough.”

“I thought it might be silver.”

“Too little, alas. There’s some in the leather post-case on the other side. But you have found me out all the same. I’m not so modern a dragon that I don’t keep a bit of a hoard. For emergencies.”

“Perhaps I can—can add to it, Fespanarax. I promised you my fortune. Here it is.” Ileth pulled out her bag of silver nuggets, carefully saved over a year. Though she’d promised the silver to him, even if she hadn’t, she would have given it away in any case. The memories of that last flight would prevent her from ever spending the nuggets on herself.

“Not much of a fortune, girl.”

“I grew up in a lodge. This is rich to me,” Ileth said.

“I will take it. What’s more, I will thank you. It’s the last silver I’ll see for a while in this hole.”

They made for the bridge in the style Fespanarax ordered, her walking ahead, carrying her stout bag and its nuggets and the odd Galantine coin or two. It was too heavy to hold up for long, so she ended up cradling it in her arms.

It wasn’t much of a procession toward the Long Bridge, though a few came out at the news. Dun Huss and the Borderlander were there, uniforms hastily thrown on and hats clamping down uncombed hair. Dun Huss, as she passed, took one of the streamers hanging from Fespanarax’s wings. He walked along, looking at the red shield design with the gold stripe across it.

“Truly, Ileth?” he said, smiling. “Gentlemen, we are being visited by a Galantine significant. Straighten up that line, you all! You’re not a bunch of housewives at a laundry fountain. Toe it!”

The last was barked with such an air of authority that those few gathering on the bridge fell into ranks lining it to either side. Those among them who were in Guard uniform presented arms. It wasn’t much of a line on either side, but then she wasn’t much of a dragoneer.

“Eyes on Fespanarax of the Serpentine, aaaaaaaand—render honors!” Dun Huss said over the wind.

“There was a time the whole Serpentine would turn out,” Fespanarax grumbled. “I suppose they didn’t know I was coming.”

There was some trouble finding a spot for a dragon of Fespanarax’s size and importance so late in the Beehive. In the end, they left him in the Chamber with kitchen staff running for their wheeled troughs to feed him. Ileth happily turned his care over to the grooms. She left her bag of nuggets atop Fespanarax’s sealed chest.

It was very late. Or perhaps very early. The only two people still awake (or already up) in the Dancers’ Quarter were Ottavia and Preen. Preen was reading, Ottavia worked at her desk, and one of the music boxes played. Preen had tea. Maybe it was morning. She hoped she wouldn’t be ordered to drill and fatigue.

They both looked some mix of delighted and astonished when they recognized her, standing in her flying gear, grown a bit, hair its usual chopped mess, looking forward to a wash.

“By my mother’s blood, it’s Ileth!” Ottavia said, standing. “Back at last. Have you grown? You have grown!”

“Vii and Santeel have missed you, Ileth. It’s like having two flints with no steel,” Preen said. “Can I get you a tea? We have a great quantity of candied almonds, too. Have as many as you want. They might perk you up. Zusya has a suitor, or someone who wants to be a suitor, that wingman with the big sideburns who used to hang about with Peak, Pasfa Sleng. She told him she could eat them every day, and, well, it’s been raining almonds ever since.”

“Tea would be lovely,” Ileth said.

She took her tea, washed up her most noisome crevices, and collapsed and slept until midday. The dancers rising did not disturb her.

Once able to see and think, she discovered she had three letters accumulated. One was from Falth in his elegant hand, and one was a thank-you note for volunteering from the Master in Charge, awaiting her return. She later learned that this was a habit of his. He would write a note to dragoneers flying out on particularly onerous or dangerous tasks. When they returned, they’d find a note of appreciation. If they didn’t return, he placed them in a case in his office and perused them now and then before making an important decision.

Though she hoped to rise in the Serpentine, learning that made her think she might not ever wish to rise to his office.

The third was a little confusing, couched as it was in so much formal legalese. It was from some archivist in Asposis written on the orders of a “Practitioner of Laws, Affirmed as Agent” in Sammerdam. It was a heavily annotated paper, only about a third in Montangyan, with Hypatian phrases and reference numbers throughout. It appeared that as the Lodger’s heir (in the Vales; he had other heirs elsewhere who were being notified by other agents who specialized in this kind of thing—for rich fees), she’d gained some “listed title-scrolls, held in trust in the following archives (see attached locations).” They were obviously scrolls and books of various kinds, and the titling was obscure. It didn’t seem like anything she’d find interesting reading. It looked to be genealogy lists and discourses about boats and engineering and lumber and mining. Well, he’d been a dragon of wide learning and deep interests and had been involved in constructing the Serpentine. This was probably his reference collection from that time, returned to this archivist in Asposis. If such a thing as a history of the Serpentine’s founding were ever written, it might be of interest to the historian. It was a matter for Kess in the archives.

She laid them back on her little shelf and used a candle to hold them down. She realized her only real dance sheath was now not fit for service, and she’d given Fespanarax her silver and coin. She’d have to beg one off someone. Well, she’d begged as a lodge-girl; she could beg as a Galantine Lady of Hospitals and Refuges.

The only person around was Santeel Dun Troot, who was eating pickled eggs from the dragon kitchens and writing a letter to her father. Ileth couldn’t help but see “allowance” in the text, as Santeel had underlined it. She said she had two old sheaths she could easily spare, or a much nicer one that would require some sewing before it would be fit for dancing. Ileth was grateful for one of the old ones.

“I enjoyed your l-letters. I wish there had been more,” Ileth said, when the business was done.

Santeel crossed her arms. “I grew sick of answering questions: Ileth, Ileth, Ileth, have you heard anything from Ileth? I could have just as easily gone. Was it hard, eating Galantine feasts and making sure you didn’t expose your bosom overmuch in the sun?”

“The only hard part was the boredom,” Ileth said. Half-truths were so useful. “How do things proceed with Rapoto?”

Santeel shrugged. “Our official unofficial engagement has excited our families more than either of us. I wonder if I want that life anymore, presiding over prize apple basket judging at the harvest fair and being complimented on my children. I’m still grateful to him—and you, Ileth—for going along with it so I can stay here. I’m supposed to start with the physikers in the summer. But I shall still dance when they have need of an extra body. Not looking forward to doctoring. I about bring up my breakfast when I see blood, but they tell me I’ll get over it.”

Santeel brought her up-to-date on other small doings of the dancers’ nook and let loose a secret that Ottavia was planning on taking a few dancers to Sammerdam for an exhibition, if she could find any who would swear on their souls not to accept any offers of marriage. The talk of travel reminded her of Fespanarax and she decided that she was still technically his dragoneer and should check on his care up in the Rotunda.

She promised Santeel that she’d see her at afternoon drill.

Fespanarax was still asleep. They had found a shelf for him. She went down to see it and after deciding it would fit him easily she walked back to the notch and ran into Dath Amrits.

Amrits smiled broadly at her but his eyes didn’t have their usual sparkle. “Good to have you back, Ileth. You set the example and keep us on our toes. Did the Galantines finally grow sick of the old grump on wings? To hear Hael talk, they do away with the inconvenience with poison that turns your teeth blue.”

Ileth explained, truthfully enough, that she’d never worried about being poisoned, and she’d been released in hopes of getting the peace negotiations on a firmer footing. Amrits smiled wanly. He wasn’t his usual self and she asked after him.

“Oh, it’s Etiennersea. She’s in one of her moods. Suffers from headaches. Gets her very down. I keep her on thin broths and stay on her shelf with her until she feels better. Sometimes rubbing her neck helps, but dragons have a great deal of neck, so it wears me out. Oh, speaking of worn out, have you heard about the eggs?”

“Eggs?”

“Yes. Vithleen has had a clutch. She’s installed down in your old Lodger’s digs, since it is so quiet down there.”

“Vithleen! Well . . . they’ll be fast when they grow up.”

“You should tell Fespanarax. I think Vithleen is his niece or something.”

“Vithleen—how does it work with dragons? She has a mate?” Ileth asked. “I didn’t know.”

“Yes, has for years, they’ve just never had any luck with eggs. I suppose I should go back to a night not long after you left. I remember old Hael had just come back from the Galantine lands and with his obsession with poisons. Anyway, Falberrwrath was down in spirits. Perhaps he missed you.”

“What does Falberrwrath have to do with Vithleen?”

“He’s her mate, have been for years. Dragons are odd; they often mate but don’t spend much time together unless there’s a clutch. Falberrwrath fought in the Galantine War; Vithleen raced about doing messages. But back to my story.

“Falberrwrath was down, as I was saying. Said something about wishing he’d gone down in flames in the war like Mnarfemum. I understand they were close. There was talk that he might be fading into a decline. Well, Ottavia really put on the show to perk him up. She spent three whole nights with him dancing herself half to death. At the end of it, he was feeling like a strong young dragon again, and he invited Vithleen up. Did you know dragons mate aloft? At high altitude, I understand. The males have to work quite hard to get up there; not all of them can do it. Falberrwrath must have had some fire lit under him because he caught up to her, the old notch-hound, and a few weeks later Vithleen asked to be taken off courier duty as she was fatigued. The next thing you know, everyone was talking about eggs. It’s rare in the Serpentine. Usually a mated pair who wants a family goes off somewhere remote for a while. It’s supposed to be an excellent omen for the novices this year. If you put any belief into omens.

“So as I said, when she felt her time was close, she installed herself where your Lodger fellow used to be. Best keep her out of the way. The dragons don’t like humans about, especially when the eggs are about to hatch. That’s some ways off, though, the physikers say. But when they start to tap, best keep well away. Even Serpentine dragons will kill you for coming near them and beg forgiveness after the eggs are hatched, I’m told. Maybe you’re brave enough to go down and see them hatch, but I’m not.”

Amrits saw a groom he needed and excused himself.

Well, dragon eggs. That was news. Funny that Santeel or the other dancers didn’t mention it. Was it a secret? Amrits might be the sort of fellow to let a secret slip, especially if he was tired and talking to someone he trusted.

She found Yael Duskirk pushing his food cart. His white apprentice sash was worn, sad, and stained. Usually he kept it so bright.

She asked him to find something special for Fespanarax to enjoy for his first meal back in the Serpentine, as the Galantines had been feeding him on cattle odds-and-ends. He agreed, and asked for details of her release. Ileth said that the letter to the Baron from the King said that the release of Fespanarax was partially in hope of getting the peace talks moving forward again.

“The Galantines usually cry peace only when they’re about to get their throats cut, or do some cutting of their own. I wonder why now?” He closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

“Are you well?” Ileth asked. Everyone in the Serpentine seemed to be out of sorts today.

“Tired. My new novice is a lazy scat. You’ll notice he’s not here. His father’s a Name in the stock exchange in Sammerdam and he’s used to getting his way, being born with a Vor in his name. I’d like to be a big bug for a change. So how did the world seem over in the Baronies? Will there be peace, or will my torments finally end over the Scab?”

“At Chapalaine there wasn’t much talk of politics,” Ileth said. “At least in conversations with women. They only spoke of food, entertainments, courtships, babies. Always babies.”

“Lucky you. Well, they say there’s a monster of a crayfish in the kitchens; maybe your dragon would like that. I’ll see to it, Ileth.”

He moved away, and Ileth let the phrase your dragon roll around in her mind. Fespanarax wasn’t the sort of dragon she would pick, and he seemed to have bad luck with dragoneers, but it was still an extraordinarily pleasant phrase to hear. It knocked around in her head the rest of the day, trying itself out.

The next day, the Dancers’ Quarter had some excitement. A letter from Peak had arrived, and it contained little but the news of prices for paintings and the fatigues of being a muse. Peak made her think of Galia, and Galia made her think of Yael Duskirk. She realized she should have said something to him about Galia. She hoped that he hadn’t been too set down by news of Galia’s marriage.

She reprimanded herself for not giving him the full story, as a friend to him who saw Galia and the way she changed up close.

At meal break after drills and fatigues—and was Ileth ever fatigued; she hadn’t been drilling as much as she should have in the Golden Land—she went to the kitchen for pickled eggs and found him.

It turned out he was there, supervising some new apprentices and novices and teaching them which dragons preferred fish and which wanted fowl. She inquired about his schedule, and they arranged to have a bite in the kitchens that evening.

That night, neither of them had a sudden call. With the weather turning warm, many of the dragoneers were gone on commissions, and the Serpentine had but a handful of dragons left.

The cooks were just going off duty, arguing about the overuse of paprika. Ileth saw Yael Duskirk scrubbing his mobile feed trough. Judging from the vigor he put into scraping out the trough and the scowl on his face, he was having a bad day.

Ileth asked him if something was the matter.

“I’ve just been with your friend Fespanarax,” he said. “He’s the moody type, isn’t he?”

“You c-c-can’t begin to know.”

“He’s already forgotten your name, or pretends to. He calls you ‘the stuttering girl.’ Galia was ‘the tall one.’”

“About . . . about Galia.”

“I’ve been trying to forget her. Should never have put my hopes into her. I was fine for her until a wealthy man came along.”

“You’ve heard of her marriage?”

“Yes. It was—I’m not sure scandal is the word for it, but it’s what I want to say. Shocking. We were shocked.”

“Yes. So was I.”

Duskirk shook his head. “I can’t stop thinking about her. Another failure.”

“I think she had too many hard knocks. She married to put some cushioning beneath her. And what do you mean, failure? Aren’t you a wingman?”

“I’m not specifically working with anyone. I should have had Vithleen, but now she’s with her eggs in the Cellars. The chance of a real commission is slim. They won’t give me a younger dragon because I’m too inexperienced, and the older dragons have their own lists of humans they like to work with. Everything seems to go wrong for me, in the air and on the ground. If I were wingman to the Borderlander, perhaps. Could you ask him for me? He seems fond of you.”

“I don’t—I don’t think he takes wingmen. I will ask. What about Fespanarax? I could speak to him about you.”

He started to scrub out his wheeled food trough. “Falberrwrath will complain if his trough isn’t spotless. He’s always complaining about his digestion. As for Fespanarax, I don’t know. He’s a famous dragon. Seems awful high above what I should expect. That and all his riders seem to die.”

“I flew him lots and-and-and I’m still standing here. Unless I’m . . . what’s the ex-expression you use?”

“The exception that proves the rule.”

Ileth nodded.

“Perhaps Vithleen will give me another chance, once her clutch hatches and years out. Vithleen is kind. Never complains if it’s fish three meals in a row.”

“Of the dragons I know, she’s my favorite.” Ileth’s legs ached at the memory of their round trip. The long trip on Fespanarax was comparatively easy, come to think of it. Maybe she should try to get courier runs if she ever made it that far. Ask to do the difficult and all that.

“Yes, I should have had that commission. Confusion in the flight cave, and things go wrong for me again. Ah well. Pass me the warm water there, the wash-bucket next to the stove. You know, I’ve never seen eggs hatching, should be interesting, if they let us anywhere near, that is. Have to split them up right away, I understand. I’ve heard if there’s more than one male, they’ll fight to death to establish dominance of the nest. Then the remaining hatchlings eat the loser. How’s that for a start in life? ’Course, maybe we humans aren’t much better; we just drag it out over twenty or thirty years.”

It was difficult for Ileth to lift. The tub itself was heavy even without water in it, and she made the mistake of picking it up on the side that had the pour-spout in the rim. She sloshed a great deal of water on herself as she brought it to Duskirk.

“Don’t worry, you can dry it by the stove. The fires there can fix it in no time.”

Ileth saw the way he looked at her. She didn’t want more of that trouble.

“I can dry it in the Dancers’ Quarter.”

He stepped toward her anyway. “Here, let me help you.”

“Please. I can handle it.”

He took one end, ignoring her wet work shirt.

She did like him, quite a bit, even if her interest in him was more about the head and heart than the landmarks south of there. Maybe somewhere other than the Serpentine she would have seen him in a different light, but she’d already been written into that Blue Book of Caseen’s and she’d do nothing to risk it being opened again.

“I wonder what Galia saw in that Galantine. A title?”

“I think she saw the estate, not the man. I think she liked him well enough, but she didn’t love him. She loved—”

Gods, she was worse than Quith.

“She loved?”

Ileth looked down. She couldn’t name Dun Huss. Dun Huss had done nothing to encourage Galia, behaved correctly to her, even in Galia’s telling. Stories always got twisted, the way everyone thought she’d fought Gorgantern in the raw. “Someone back here. But it was impossible.”

“Impossible because he wasn’t rich, didn’t have a title?”

“I—I didn’t know enough about it. She didn’t confide in me. Her betrothal took me by surprise.”

He bent to scrub out the feeding cart with renewed energy, a snarl on his lips, and tipped it. A wave of filthy wash water struck him right in the face.

Ileth stifled a giggle.

“Fates!” he said, wiping his face. “I want to be rich enough so I never have to scrub fish scales out of a bin again.”

“I’m sure you will be.”

“Not rutting likely. Even you think I’m a bit of mlumm that won’t wash off.”

“No. Yael, you’re—you were the first person here to speak . . . to speak nicely to me. I like you.”

“I like you too. You’re of my sort of people, no great expectations. We could go. Cut loose the entanglements here, build a life somewhere else.”

She’d been told men went mad around women sometimes, but this was a little too much. She calmed dragons down by being close to them and made men try to rake the moon. “Yael. Be sensible. Neither of us . . . neither needs to go anywhere. Look at what you have. Flying, even. I’m not even an apprentice yet.”

“Oh, they must make you one, now. You brought back Fespanarax. You were basically his dragoneer from . . . from, well, whenever Galia found her future.”

“Yes, we were stuck together for a stretch of seasons. What happened there doesn’t matter much here. I’m a dragon dancer, and you are learning to fly.”

“I bet you’d forget about that if someone rich came along. Like Galia.” The comment didn’t hurt at all; she’d been carved up by expert butchers.

Ileth tried to think of something that would comfort him. “She’ll regret her choice, in the end. The Galantines are tiresome and they treat their wives, well, I don’t see Galia as a baby farm. She’ll wish she were back here, in that hayloft with you, sooner or later.”

“Maybe I should go rescue her.”

“Maybe you should, dragoneer.”

Yael chuckled. “Well, have to get a dragon first.” He scrubbed out his bin with renewed energy.