Tooth and Claw (27 page)

Felin shook her head as she went out to the ledge. She had been giving way to him for years, as they had both been giving way to his mother for years. Habits could be very difficult to break.

As soon as Felin left for the Place, Penn put down his letter and looked at Selendra.

“What possessed Avan to try to take Daverak to law? And what possessed you to join your name with him?” He sounded thoroughly irritated, and even a little worried.

“You agreed that Daverak had no right to eat as much of Father’s body as he did,” Selendra said, startled. “You were furious.”

“That’s different. That’s a family disagreement. Personally, yes, I agree, Daverak had no right. I argued as much at the time. But Selendra, taking him to law, taking the matter out of the family, exposes us in a way that is potentially most uncomfortable.” Penn looked at her helplessly. “Can he be persuaded to withdraw?”

“You can ask him, of course, but he seemed adamant that he would go ahead with it,” Selendra said. “It is Avan who was most harmed by Daverak.”

“I shall write straight away, refusing my cooperation,” Penn said. “You must do the same, withdrawing your name.”

Selendra bowed her head. “Haner urges the same,” she said, touching her fingers to the letter she had just received. “She says we will not be able to maintain our friendly intercourse unless I do.”

“Well, of course not,” Penn said.

Selendra felt the tears spilling out of her eyes and down her snout. “I couldn’t bear not to see Haner,” she said, the words catching in her throat.

“Then write and withdraw your name,” Penn urged.

“I suppose so. But poor Avan.”

“Poor Avan! Avan has started all this. He doesn’t understand what trouble he can cause. They want me to tell them everything Father said on his deathbed,” Penn said, tapping the letter on his knee. “Preposterous. Outrageous. Impossible.”

“Why?” Selendra asked.

“Why?” Penn’s eyes shifted from side to side uncomfortably. “His privacy, my position. It’s unthinkable.”

“I see,” Selendra said, although not knowing the circumstances of the confession, she did not see in the slightest why Penn could not simply tell them what they needed to know.

“I shall write to them myself, immediately,” Penn said, bustling out, flexing his claws in anticipation of the pen.

Selendra turned her attention back to the half-eaten mutton before her. She did not want it. She had barely been able to eat since Sher—since the rescue of Wontas. She had not seen Sher since their return. She had not been out of the parsonage. Penn and Felin had treated her extremely well, thinking the ordeal in the cave had exhausted her. They had both expressed their gratitude, and Felin had made Wontas thank her too. Nobody had pressed her to do anything she did not want to. She had even been able to escape the Firstday church service the previous day, though Penn had come and prayed with her in her bedroom. She had not minded that. She did not wish to neglect the gods, indeed she especially wanted to implore Jurale’s mercy. She had not wanted to go to church because she hadn’t wanted to see Sher.

One of the servants was peering around the doorway, to see if it was time to take the bones away. “I’ve finished,” Selendra said. The servant made a pleased bob, glad of the leftovers no doubt.
Selendra drew herself to her feet, took up Haner’s letter, and went to look in on the dragonets.

The nanny was rebinding Wontas’s claw, and Gerin was helping to keep Wontas entertained through the process. After checking that the smell of the break was still clean, Selendra left them to it.

Amer was alone in the kitchen, making a foul-smelling potion. The other servants were still clearing the dining room.

“Is that for Wontas?” Selendra asked.

“It’s to keep the break clean,” Amer explained. Then she stopped, frowning. “What’s wrong, Selendra?”

“Nothing,” Selendra said, trying to keep her violet eyes from spilling tears. “I have a letter from Haner.”

“What’s happened to her?”

“She doesn’t sound happy. Avan is taking Daverak to law and it’s disturbing her. Daverak has taken flame, look.” Amer could not read, so Selendra could safely show her the drawing.

Amer laughed, and pushed the paper back. “Read it to me,” she said.

Selendra read it, leaving out the teasing about Sher, which she knew her sister had meant kindly but which now felt like a spear against her tender breast. When she finished, Amer shook her head. “She didn’t say a word of greeting to me? And where you had put in your letter that I sent my regards, she put that comment about the institution of servitude being wrong?”

“That’s right,” Selendra said. “I suppose she’s right, it is unfair, but it’s the way the world is. So many things are unfair.” She sighed.

Amer flexed her wings a little in their bindings. “So what unfairness has life brought you?” she asked, with a great deal of generosity. She was fond of Selendra.

Selendra looked behind her to make sure no other servants had
come into the room unnoticed. “It seems the numbers were against me with the potion,” she said, lowering her voice.

“Are you sure?” Amer asked.

Selendra gestured to her relentlessly golden flank.

“Who was it? Did he touch you?”

“Sher,” she admitted, in a whisper.

“The Exalted Benandi?” Amer asked. “You’re aiming to do well for yourself, my dragonet!”

“It wasn’t like that at all!” Selendra protested. “I never thought of him that way until he made it plain. I thought he was betrothed to Gelener Telstie.”

“So did his mother, no doubt,” Amer said, and chuckled. “So you didn’t think it in advance? He took you by surprise? That might be reason enough for not coloring.”

“I didn’t expect Frelt either!” Selendra whispered angrily.

“No, but Frelt leaned against you, and he was expecting it. Did Sher lean?”

“No. He came quite close, almost touching, but he didn’t exactly lean.” Selendra’s eyes whirled dreamily as she remembered.

“Did he touch you at all?”

“He put his claw out, but he didn’t touch me. He was much closer than dragons are supposed to come, Amer! He was right next to me, less than a foot away.”

“Get him to come closer next time,” Amer advised. “It might be the potion, but it might not. Cuddle up to him as you might to your sister and see if that makes you blush.”

“I don’t expect there’ll be another chance,” Selendra said. “I told him to go away. And as you just said, he’s an Exalted lord and I am merely the parson’s sister, he’ll think about that and be glad I pushed him away.” The tears spilled down now.

“Well, if you’re not crying to be gold, you’re crying to be pink,” Amer said.

Selendra choked. “It isn’t funny,” she said, laughing despite herself.

“If he cares, he’ll try again,” Amer said, comfortingly. “Give him a chance, and get close to him. Touch him. You can’t lose anything even if you don’t color up.”

“Only my dignity,” Selendra said.

“And what’s that worth in the marketplace?” Amer asked.

“But if I can’t color, then I can’t give him children. It would be very wrong to marry if I can’t.”

“Nobody ever heard of anyone marrying and staying a maiden,” Amer said, quite loudly, as the servant who had been clearing the dining room came back into the kitchen with a pile of bare bones. “Take this potion to ’Spect Wontas, if you would, ’Spec Selendra, it’s done now. And if you’re writing to ’Spec Haner, tell her I’d be interested to hear more of what she was saying.”

Selendra took the pot of potion and left.

Felin considered as she flew home what she would tell her husband and her sister-in-law with respect to her conversation with the Exalt. Though she had defended Selendra as strongly as she dared, she was not sure how to begin the subject with her. As for Penn, Felin did not know how he would react. He was dependent on the Exalt for his position as Parson of Benandi, which provided the family with both home and income. He might be angry with his sister for causing trouble, and with Felin for not having acquiesced to everything the Exalt wanted. It would be easier not to open the subject
with either of them. Yet both of them would notice that no invitations were forthcoming from the Place, and some explanation would have to be given.

On her return home she found Selendra playing with the dragonets. She did not venture any information, and Selendra also kept her own counsel.

When Penn came out of his study, wiping the ink from his claws, she had had time to think of her strategy. She took him aside to the Speaking Room. “The Exalt wishes to keep Sher and Selendra apart,” she said.

“What? Why?” Penn’s mind was still with Avan’s scheme and the risk it posed to his profession.

“It seems she thinks Sher will grow too fond of her,” Felin said.

“Sher? Nonsense. With all the maidens in Tiamath throwing themselves at his head why would he look at a pale little thing like Selendra?” Penn asked, unkindly.

Felin, who had guessed that this would be his reaction, merely spread her hands. “Who knows what makes the Exalt take ideas into her head?” she asked. “But for a little while we’re not going to go to the Place socially. You will, naturally, go up alone for everything you normally would, and so will I, but we won’t visit them as a family for dinner or anything like that, until Sher goes away again.”

“If that’s what the Exalt wants,” Penn said, frowning. “But does she really imagine that of Selendra?”

“Do you think she’s not old enough?” Felin asked.

Penn did not want to discuss the Frelt incident with Felin, so he simply grunted. Husband and wife then joined Selendra for dinner, united in that perfect confidence which the enduring state of marriage inspires in so many dragons.

Several weeks passed in this way. The parsonage family and the Place family met only at Firstday services. The Exalt made sure that
Sher stayed by her side on those occasions. Selendra missed no more church, but she sat with her head bowed, aware that Sher was looking at her but not daring to return his gaze. Sher did not attempt to visit the parsonage, and Selendra did not inquire as to her good fortune in not being forced to visit the Place. Freshwinter became Icewinter, and still Sher and the Exalt lingered in Benandi. Icewinter lived up to its name, showering them with snow. In the second week of Icewinter the news of Berend’s death was brought to Benandi, casting Penn and Selendra into gloom, though neither of them had been especially close to their sister since her marriage.

Firstday came two days later, in the regular five-spoked turning wheel of the week. For the first time since the picnic, Selendra raised her head in church and met Sher’s gaze. She did no more, but she allowed herself to look at him. Life was short and death was everywhere. If, by Jurale’s mercy, Sher was there across the church, she would no longer forbid herself from the sight.

The morning after that, Felin announced at breakfast that she would take Selendra to visit the milliner.

“But we are still in mourning for our father, she does not need a change of headgear,” Penn said.

“Not to change into mourning, no, but the few hats she has are sadly shabby. It will be Deepwinter in two weeks, and she should have something better to wear on Deepwinter Night than a hat she has been wearing almost daily since Highsummer! It is not so cold today, and it is hardly two hours flight.”

“There is no need, Felin,” Selendra murmured. Her sister-in-law overbore all protests and they soon set off.

It did Selendra good to be on her wings again. She had hardly been out since the picnic, except to church, which was a walk, of course. She had almost forgotten the feeling of the wind in her wings and the way the world looks in sunlight. The world was a whirl of
white from above, broken only by the darkness of firs and the straight dark lines of the rails when they passed over them.

“It’s cold, but it’s glorious to fly,” Felin said after a while, and Selendra was pleased to agree wholeheartedly. She felt better than she had for weeks.

“How far are we going?” she asked.

“Not far, unfortunately,” Felin said. “I don’t know why, but I love flying in the cold. My mother hated it. She used to say that before the Conquest her family came from warmer climates, which are all Yarge countries now, and her blood was too thin for up here.”

Selendra laughed. “You must take after your father,” she said. She had heard tales of Felin’s brave father already, most often from Wontas, who bore his name.

The milliner’s establishment was in the little town of Three Firs. Hepsie, the milliner, was neither so fashionable nor so elegant as those in Irieth. She was the widow of a dragon whose ambitions had not been as great as his prowess. She had taken up the profession out of desperation after his fall, hoping to feed her children without needing to take service with a great family. To her own surprise, she had prospered mildly as all the dragons in the region took advantage of her cunning fingers and reasonable prices. Felin had been buying hats from Hepsie for years, and even the Exalt would deign to buy the occasional country cap from her.

Selendra’s hats had all been made at home, or occasionally bought ready-made by her brothers. She had never visited a milliner’s establishment. She could not have imagined the range of hats available, nor the way they were fitted. The establishment was a wonder to her. They had to wait while a maiden was being fitted for a charming red-and-gold Deepwinter cap. The maiden was one of those who had been to the picnic, and greeted them as if they were long lost friends. Felin chatted to her while Selendra just gazed at
the hats displayed in the nooks carved into every space in the walls of the little cavern. She had never imagined hats in such a profusion of shapes, colors, and textures. There were berets, tricorns, toques, cloches, sunbonnets, and other styles whose names Selendra did not know.

When their turn came, Hepsie bustled forward. “Blest Agornin! How lovely to see you. What can I do for you today?”

“More black, I’m afraid,” Felin said. “You know what I like. And I’m also looking for something, black fleece, becoming, for ’Spec Agornin here, my husband’s sister.”