Novice Dragoneer

19

Between the trial of Yael Duskirk and Vithleen’s recovery, Ileth met with a jury of unnamed official questioners who asked her, in detail, over the course of two days all that she could remember about events in the Galantine lands. They screened the room in such a way that she couldn’t make out their faces clearly, though she had ample light on her thanks to a skylight. She tried to be completely honest. She found the process exhausting. They questioned her closely about the news of Vithleen’s clutch. As far as Ileth could tell, there was no way for the Galantines to have learned of the eggs through her; the first she’d heard of them was when she returned to the Serpentine. Yet Fespanarax’s returning to the Serpentine with a supply of poison implied that the Galantines released him with the idea of having him steal the eggs. The consensus of her jury seemed to be that since negotiations delayed the dragon’s return again and again, the rescue of the children from the plateau gave them an opportunity to return Fespanarax as their agent without questions being asked. Ileth happened to be caught up in greater plots than she knew, which dulled the shine of her Galantine title.

Therefore there was a spy, or several spies, for the Galantines within the Serpentine. It would be easy enough for anyone to communicate with other spies in Vyenn, who could then send secret messages back via courier down the river. A simple boat trip down the river could get you to the border.

When they formally dismissed her from questioning they did so with a promise and a request. A promise that her excellent and useful observations would be noted, and a request to not say anything about suspicions of Galantine spies.

Leaving such matters for the investigators, she finally had her much-delayed appointment with the Master of Novices. She settled on an evening after she’d finished dancing for Falberrwrath, who was still out of sorts over the poisoning and the eggs, so much so that he didn’t even regale her with old war stories, but shifted about nervously until the music, motion, and, she supposed, the smell of her sweat soothed him.

She was too tired after that to be nervous. She found Master Caseen alone in his office.

Ileth couldn’t think of what she’d done to be called in. It couldn’t be that she was promoted to apprentice; Selgernon would be present for that. Had news of her Galantine title caused her some difficulty? Perhaps she’d violated some patriotic rule. Reintroducing aristocratic titles or something like that.

She certainly hadn’t put on airs—though she’d been tempted to ask Santeel if a Galantine Lady of Hospitals and Refuges, with Acts, had to perform a courtesy to a Dun Troot first, or if it was the reverse. Hael Dun Huss hinted that he understood the meaning on those streamers hung on Fespanarax for her return. She’d confessed it to the jury of inquiry and showed them the Galantine King’s letter. Maybe this was leading to an official reprimand.

“Here you are again, Ileth, in my office. Feels like old times, eh?” Nothing had changed, not even his habit of scratching at his elbows as he filtered memories. He even wore the same decorative mask and tasseled sash. No, there was something different. He had a new lamp. It was on an arm and counterweight that allowed the light to be tilted without spilling the oil, and the light had a shade that reflected and concentrated the illumination. Very clever. It was probably from one of the artisans in Tyrenna. The things they created!

“You have a new lamp.”

“Yes, the flame adjusts better for reading. My eyes are getting old, along with the rest of me.”

She couldn’t say much to that.

“I have an interesting letter here.” He gestured to his desk. For a moment Ileth startled, thinking it was from the Galantine King, as it was roughly the same size, but it didn’t have nearly the same rich décor of ribbons and seals.

“Does it concern me, sir?”

“I took my time figuring that out,” Caseen said. “It’s from no less a personage than Governor Raal of your own North Province. Some weeks after your first flight on Vithleen, he wrote me demanding the return of a runaway to the Freesand Lodge. The runaway’s name was Ileth. Now, for all he knew, I had six novices named after a Galantine Queen who went to her death with a Directist prayer on her lips, so I wrote back asking for more information. It turns out she stutters and had been seen on dragonback carrying the Republic’s mails. That letter I gave to Kess in the archives to ask if anyone of that description had been enrolled, but as chance would have it Kess blundered and misfiled it. It’s rare, but it’s been known to happen. By the time a personal representative of your Governor showed up at our gate, you were a prisoner in the Galantine lands and there was nothing we could do for him.”

Ileth could only say, “Thank you, sir.”

“Governor Raal has never been any sort of friend to the Serpentine, so I wonder at him writing us himself. The man who ran your lodge, did Governor Raal owe him some great favor?”

The Captain, in his cups, always insisted that he knew important names who owed him. But then, when drunk, he also insisted that he’d killed sixteen men single-handed and escaped the Rari pirates, and that the moon was always watching and knew if you were talking mutiny, so Ileth had not taken the claims seriously. “I don’t know anything about such matters,” she said, happy to be entirely truthful.

“I’m glad that’s settled. You wish to exert your right as a sixteen-year-old to choose your own path and dwelling?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. Because I have more news for you.”

She braced herself as best as she could and just looked at the mask and his sound eye.

“It is happy news for a change. You are appointed apprentice.”

So it was that! She’d made it in, found a place with all these Names. Despite the stutter. Despite the Lodge. Despite the rumors about her mother, which, when she was a child, the whole world held over her, and now they yellowed and faded into sad garden-wall gossip that deserved only a contemptuous snap of her fingers. Despite, perhaps, the demands of a Vale provincial Governor. “Thank you,” she said, her voice choked with emotion for a change, rather than tripping on her poky and unreliable tongue.

“Why . . . why isn’t the Master of Apprentices here for this?”

“Selgernon’s on leave. He’s been indisposed since this Duskirk business. He may quit the Serpentine and attend to his health.”

“I hope he recovers.”

“He’s a good man. I told him not to blame himself for Duskirk; you can’t know what’s in the hearts of hundreds of youths. But I’m sorry this took so long. We should have done it while you were in the Galantine lands, but the thing with Galia stirred things up here a little. We’d lost a wingman to marriage; suppose an apprentice went with her? I don’t expect you to understand what some of the fine figures at the Assembly say about us sometimes. There’s a faction always looking to get rid of us. The dragons of the Serpentine absorb a good deal of balance sheet ink. We’re also seen as a legacy from the King and a refuge of aristocratic feeling. But we’ve turned the tide in battle too many times for them to get rid of us. The Republic wouldn’t exist without her dragoneers.”

Ileth clearly wasn’t listening. The Master gave her a moment to collect herself.

“You are also the last of your oathed group of novices to move up to apprentice. The rest moved up before you or went by the wayside one way or another. It makes you the tailer of the draft of sixty-six, even if it’s not your fault you were a prisoner. I’m sorry, the title will cling.”

Ileth thought she could show she cared not how she made apprentice, just that she did, by using a Zusya-like phrase like “better the tail than a . . .” But Caseen’s office was no place for adolescent jokes.

“But it’s just a name. Names change and are forgotten. Not like this.” He tapped his mask.

“Sir, if you don’t m-mind me asking, why a party mask?”

“Oh, didn’t I ever tell the story? I thought I did. The night before the battle I was at a masquerade ball. I remember thinking I looked intriguing in it and wishing I had more opportunities to wear it. Little did I know. Just goes to show that you must be careful with your wishes as well as your actions. Sometimes they’ll haunt you. Still, I was lucky. The surgeon said that if I’d lost more skin and had bone exposed in such a fashion that he couldn’t pull some bits together and stitch so it was covered up, I’d have died from a gangrenous rot. Alive and mysterious behind a mask is better than dead and good-looking.”

Ileth nodded slowly. She would miss this man.

“So this is it for us, we with our odd speech and lack of distinguished Name. I’m no longer Master of Ileth. The Blue Book turns its page. I’ve cleared my desk for a new draft. Anything more I can do for you?”

Ileth finally had time to get an answer to a question that had been bothering her off and on. “What does that gesture with the two fists brought together mean?”

“Like this?” Caseen asked, bringing his arms in front of his chest in tight fists joined as one horizontal bar, knuckles out.

“Yes. Please, I’ve seen it a few times. I even saw Aurue do it.”

“Did he? That’s good. I’ve heard he wasn’t entirely sure about being here, at least before the whole egg rescue. Well, ask six dragoneers and you’ll get six different answers. Some say it’s just a reassuring gesture for white-knuckling through difficulty. Another might just say it’s a gesture of approval. More nautical types say it means hold fast.”

“What’s your answer, sir?”

“I’d say it means keep the troth.”

“I like that one b-best.”

They smiled at each other.

Oh, there was one other thing she was curious about. “When we f-first met, that first day you opened the door to me, you mentioned a portrait. Before your . . . before your burns. I should very much like to see it. As I suppose I won’t be called into this office anymore, I confess I’ve always wondered. It seems this is my last chance.”

“I remember telling you you knew how to flatter an old man. Anything for the newest apprentice of the Serpentine,” Caseen said, smiling. He stood up, stretched a little stiffly, and started rummaging around in a map case. He opened a drawer fully and drew out a portrait.

“You have to remember, Ileth, that portrait painters find they get much better commissions if they flatter up the subject a bit. Many a young man, and woman, I suppose, has been tricked into forming an attachment over a portrait that didn’t tell the entire truth.”

Even allowing for a certain amount of artistic flourish, the portrait showed a sharp, eagle-faced young man in the most dashing style of dress dragoneer uniform. The young, unburned Caseen left Rapoto Vor Claymass well below and far behind.

“Sir, I had no idea,” Ileth said. “You really should hang it, but it might be too distracting for us girls.” She wanted to sit and drink wine and take in the picture. She quietly chuckled. For the first time in her life, she wanted to have someone’s babies!

That night she couldn’t sleep so she walked the walls, enjoying the summer wind until almost dawn, losing herself in the light of the beacon atop the Beehive, looking for the sun coming up over the mountains on the other side of the Skylake and down at the doorstep of the red door where she’d sat and waited and starved almost two years ago. She’d had enough bad moments in life to know that a good one should be lingered over, savored, memorialized. Apprenticed! Even containing her happiness was impossible; she kept alternately crying and laughing. Two Guards pacing the south wall must have thought her mad.

In theory, her place among the dragoneers of the Serpentine was now secure for the coming years of her apprenticeship, six by tradition, and much longer if you were a specialist. Shatha, after all, was believed to be above forty and therefore ancient. Ileth could almost count on rising by default, and, barring an accident or illness, would someday fly on commissions, just as Annis had atop Agrath. If she had money, she’d hire an artist to paint her likeness so that she might always have the moment a childhood wish came true.

Which gave her a thought.

In a bit of a daze from lack of sleep, she begged a bit of early breakfast from Joai, who was already up and at work in her kitchen, having just fed a few Guards coming off their night rounds. When did the woman sleep?

“You’re the prettiest tailer the Serpentine’s ever seen, anyway,” she said, kissing Ileth on the forehead at the news. “I knew this day would come. Provided you lived. Some people are prone to adventures, but not all of them live to write their memoirs.”

Ileth thanked her and hurried to the Dancers’ Quarter. She needed to retrieve her dancing sheath.

Most were at breakfast. Santeel was washing up a few odds and ends from their improvised pre-drill breakfast. “What are you so happy about?”

“Caseen has seen the last of the draft of sixty-six. The Blue Book is closed, at least on our class.”

“Why are you—wait, you’ve made apprentice?”

“The tailer,” Ileth said.

Preen and Zusya entered the washroom with their drill clothes. Preen gave her hair a playful pull; Zusya hugged her. The news would spread through the Serpentine quickly enough now.

“Saw your letter to Falth,” Santeel said, casually. “I wasn’t aware your friendship extended to my family’s servants.”

“About that,” Ileth began, before she fell into stammering.

“Oh, I know my family. Don’t even worry about it, there’s nothing to forgive.” She leaned in to hug Ileth and pulled her close, pressing her hand into the wash basin and holding it under. “If you ever write a word to them against me, I’ll drown you myself as a betrayer,” she whispered. Then she was released. “Congratulations on your promotion, apprentice!” Santeel laughed. “I’m so happy for you!”

Ileth fled the Notch and begged off morning drill to Ottavia.

She was an apprentice now. She could leave the Serpentine, as long as it was daylight—and she returned in daylight. She had that privilege. And it was daylight, just. Though she should be at drills, there was something more important to do.

She dug around beneath her bed and retrieved one item, a souvenir of the Galantine lands, and rushed out to the Long Bridge.

They barely noticed the mad girl in the bad-fitting overdress; those few who were up and about were yawning and heading for breakfast.

Ileth made it to the gate. That monkeylike boy with the long name who’d walked in on her changing was in an ill-fitting Guard uniform and serving as gatekeeper that morning. He called for the Dragon Gate to be opened for her. He watched her pass through with the same bemused, curious expression as he’d had looking at her in Joai’s kitchen, eyes peering out from under an ill-fitting fore-and-aft-rigged hat that nearly came down to his eyes. She ran down to the bayside and those old overturned boats. Panting, she made it just as the sun left the mountains on the other side of the lake.

“I’ve done it, Father. I passed their tests. I’ve made apprentice.

“Apprenticed!” she shouted, scattering the birds poking about at the edge of the lake. Farther out, she heard a splash. She’d probably startled an otter.

It was time to show him that aerial pirouette he’d once asked about.

As she bowed, centered herself, and began to dance, showing a kindly memory of a dragon who believed love and beauty and knowledge transcended the curtain between life and death, a walking flock of muddy geese appeared on the hill above, moving down toward the far end of the bay.

Two old farmers, grandfathers now who probably had sons and grandsons doing the heavy work and had been left to easier tasks, were moving their geese down to feed at a little creek that fed into the bay. With spring well on, the creek would be thick with bugs and small frogs for the geese and, when they ran out of frogs, young tender grass shoots.

One of the men saw Ileth and switched his long goose-driving pole to his other hand so he could nudge his friend.

“What do we have here, you think?” Ileth leaped and spun, leaped and spun again, one leg forward in the air, another tucked behind, her arms up and out, smiling. Perhaps crying, but then she needed some water to go with the earth on her feet and the fire in her limbs as she spun through the air.

“Don’t you know? One of those girls as dances for them dragons up there. Charms them, like, so them that ride the beasts can handle them.”

“Tricky stuff, goin’ about all raised up on your toes like that. How’s she not fall down, I want to know.”

“Thinking you’d let your young Annis twirl around like that?”

“Heh, I can just see it.”

“Eh, isn’t that the spot where they said that old dragon washed up and died?”

“I believe it is, Ewesh, I believe it is.”

They passed on with their geese. Meanwhile, the slight young woman pirouetted around an odd black stick. It stood there in the center of her circle of footprints, two red-and-white streamers left to flutter in the breeze. She threw a long shadow in the morning sun. But not so long a shadow that you couldn’t see it dancing with her.