Tooth and Claw (11 page)

“I told you it would do no good, not after last time,” said Maje, putting his arm around his wife and drawing her aside. She began to howl and cry loudly.

Daverak stalked over to the smaller hatchlings on the ground and began to examine them.

Berend stepped closer to Haner. “The lower classes always make this unseemly fuss,” she said. “It can be quite heart-rending. They’ve hidden the weaklings, even though they know it won’t achieve anything. The two out here will be the stronger ones, and the others will be hidden somewhere in there.”

Daverak entered the house. The two dragonets he had inspected clung together in silence.

“Shouldn’t the priest be here?” Haner asked. She was shaken by the experience, especially by the wretched howling of the mother, which showed no signs of ceasing.

“The demesne’s too big for him to go everywhere. Daverak will send him the eyes,” Berend explained.

Daverak came out with a hatchling under each arm. They were small and green and clearly not fit to survive. Their mother set up a renewed wail at the sight of them, louder than ever. They were still moving, and responded to this with piping wails of their own, with which their healthier siblings joined.

Haner shivered. “I’m sorry to subject you to all this,” Berend said, politely.

“It is for the good of dragonkind, as the Church teaches,” Haner said, repeating the words by rote. “And they’re very clearly the kind of dragonets who really do need to be culled,” she added, looking at them.

“Nobody enjoys it, but it is necessary, and well-bred dragons endure it without this terrible racket,” Berend said, shouting to be heard.

The howling and wailing almost drowned out Daverak’s recitation of the prayers. Haner heard an occasional phrase drifting through, “Veld’s blessings,” and “Jurale’s mercy,” and “that the rest might grow stronger.” Daverak then dismembered the dragonets neatly. Once they were dead, the family fell silent. He dropped the eyes into a pouch, doubtless for the priest. Then he looked at the collected dragons.

“These unfit hatchlings died for the good of dragonkind and according to the teachings of the Church,” he said, sternly. Maje touched his claws to the ground in submission. His wife bowed her head. Daverak dropped two of the tiny limbs on the grass in front of the family. He handed another to Haner, who took it in surprise, and divided the remainder between himself and Berend, giving Berend almost all of one of the dragonets.

Haner looked at the leg hesitantly, aware of the eyes of the family on her as she put it to her mouth. They had not yet touched their portion. She took a bite, and at once felt the strong magical taste of dragonflesh burning through her, making her feel immediately longer and braver. She met the eyes of the mother, and saw in their whirling purple depths resentment, grief, and fear.

F
elin Agornin stepped out of her home, arched her neck, leaned forwards, spread her wings to the wind, and soared upwards. It was a beautiful day. The sun shone, the trees were still green, but there was a chill in the early morning air that said that the month was Leafturn and that winter would soon be upon them.

It was the morning before Penn and Selendra left Agornin, the morning on which Felin had received her husband’s letter informing her of the addition to their household he had arranged. She had received the letter at breakfast and her emotions had chased each other over her countenance swiftly as she read it. She had been pleased and surprised to hear from Penn, then increasingly distressed by the news of the letter as it continued. Another servant! Another servant who had been Penn’s old nanny and would be full of herself and her importance to him and to his sister! Felin was ready to do her best to welcome Selendra into her establishment, but she wanted it to be quite clear it was
her
establishment into which Selendra was entering. Selendra was Penn’s sister whom they were choosing to feed and shelter and protect. She did not want
abject gratitude, but she did want the facts to be recognized. If Selendra was bringing her own servant it quite changed the position in which she would be regarded. Felin was not deceived by Penn’s words about Amer being useful with the dragonets and in the kitchens. An old family retainer arriving with Selendra would be seen as Selendra’s servant, whatever other work she did. Worst of all, her husband expected her to break the news to Exalt Benandi.

In the invisible court in her head Felin arraigned, tried, and convicted her absent husband of cowardice, extravagance, and folly. But even as she set the letter down she knew she would never reveal this judgment to anyone, least of all to Penn himself. Nor, as he had suggested she should, would she side with Exalt Benandi against him. Had she wanted to do so, she would not have waited for his permission, but she would never do anything of the kind. She knew what a wife owed to a husband, even if he did not. She sent a servant at once to order the drafters for the next day, checked that the nanny had the children well in hand, and, not putting off the unpleasant task for a moment longer than was necessary, stepped out to visit Exalt Benandi.

Benandi was a great place, much bigger than all of Undertor, and it was all the demesne of the Exalted Benandi. The name of Benandi was used for the whole demesne, stretching for several hours flight in all directions. In the center of the domain lay the mountain establishment that was the chief home of the Exalt, and of her son when he was home, which generally meant only those months of spring and autumn when the hunting was good. This establishment was known as Benandi Place.

Benandi Place was a complicated honeycomb of caves at the top of a cliff. Benandi Parsonage lay almost at the foot of this cliff. The parson (whoever he might be, for the parsonage, as usual, went with the position), had easy access to the ground, and a passage up
within the rock connecting his dwelling with that of his patrons. There was a splendid chapel a little in the old style within Benandi Place, where the Exalt generally heard a Firstday evening service. In the morning she preferred to attend the church (which was dedicated to Sainted Gerin, but known to all as Benandi Church) conveniently located downwind in the valley. With many of our gentry who have chapels of their own but who prefer to attend divine service in public, the impulse springs from a desire to be seen, or to be seen to do one’s duty, or sometimes simply from a dislike of the early rising required to have a service in the chapel, which must necessarily occur before the one in the church. With the Exalt, however, everyone knew it was rather that she desired to see everyone else doing their duty in church. If she did not see any of her farmers, or indeed her neighbors, in church on a Firstday morning, she regarded it as part of her duty to visit them within a day or two and inquire into the matter. The dragons in the neighborhood of Benandi Place were thus much given to admirably regular and punctual churchgoing.

Felin could have used this Parson’s Passage and walked up through half a mile of tunnels, past the chapel, and into the upper caves of Benandi Place. As she was not a parson, she could choose to fly instead. She never walked up except on Firstdays, and on the rare occasions, generally when the Exalted Sher Benandi was in residence, when she was taking her dragonets to visit the Place. Sher liked children. The Exalt did not care for the disorder they could cause. On almost all other occasions when Felin visited the Place, even when Penn was walking up, she caught an updraught from the parsonage ledge and simply glided up the cliff. Felin loved to fly, loved it, that is, when she had the excuse for it. She never neglected any of her duties in favor of flying. But there was no joy to her like that of feeling the wind in her wings. She banked gently and rose in
a lazy spiral, hardly moving out from the cliff at all, for she knew the winds very well, and landed on the ledge of the Place with hardly a jolt.

“Well flown,” said an unexpected voice.

“Sher!” said Felin, turning in astonishment. The Exalted Sher Benandi was lying couchant along the ledge, the burnished bronze scales of his sixty-foot length shining in the morning sunlight. “I mean Exalted Benandi,” Felin corrected herself in a little confusion. “I had not known you were home.”

“Oh, good hunting to you, Blest Agornin, if we must be on such terms, which I say we should not. I have called you Felin and you me Sher since we were little wingless dragonets crawling around together. As for not knowing I was here, do not you say you are here to see my mother and will have none of me,” Sher said, dropping his jaw in an absurdly exaggerated leer.

Felin laughed, a spontaneous chuckle that seemed to rise from her toes. She did not think it appropriate in a parson’s wife to laugh like that, but she had, as he said, known Sher since they were dragonets. “I am delighted to see you, just surprised, that’s all. I saw your mother only yesterday and she didn’t tell me you were expected.”

“Does she keep you dancing attendance every day?” Sher asked, disapprovingly, then went on without waiting for an answer. “Well the truth is I came on the flick of a wing. My visit was proving damnably dull, and I thought a little rest at home would be pleasant.”

“Would prove restorative after a debauch, you mean,” Felin countered, though as she spoke she wished she could catch it back. Sher did look tired, not just weary after his long flight but worn as if from troubles.

Sher laughed, dutifully. “My mother was pestering me,” he said.

Felin smiled, disbelieving, knowing how well Sher had learned
to ignore and bamboozle his mother. “She must be very pleased to see you now,” she said.

“She would have been happier if she’d had a month to prepare,” Sher said, ruefully. “I’ve come out here to escape from all the preparation being done at once now I am here, even if it is to result in the most comfortable gold in my bed and all my favorite dishes for dinner. No doubt you’ll be invited.”

“Not today, for Penn is still away.”

“Away? When it was Firstday but three days ago and will be Firstday again in another two? What was my mother thinking to allow that?”

Bon’s death had loomed so large in Felin’s life she had forgotten there could be anyone who did not know it, and was taken aback for a moment by Sher’s teasing. “The Exalt did have to manage without Penn for one Firstday, though he arranged for Blessed Hape to come out to take the service in the church. But his father was dying, and has died, so she had to agree.”

“Old Bon has died? I’m very sorry to hear that,” Sher said, his big dark eyes suddenly remorseful. “I don’t suppose you knew him well, but he was a wonderful old dragon, rock of the mountains. I visited Agornin several times when I was in school. What’s to become of the place? Penn can’t take it, of course, can his little brother?”

“No, though old Bon hoped to live long enough that he could,” Felin explained. “Avan, the brother, isn’t up to it, so it’ll be managed by the Illustrious Daverak who is married to Penn’s hatch-mate Berend, and at last go to one of their children.”

“I remember Berend,” Sher said, smiling. “I see her from time to time up in Irieth, where she acts the haughty Illust’ with me as if I’d never chased her down a mountain when she was learning to fly. All the same, that’s sad about Agornin. Penn should have said, I might have been able to help his brother. Too late now.”

This offer of help when once it was too late to be of use seemed to Felin so characteristic of Sher that she could not answer it. “I must see your mother,” she said.

If the inside of Benandi Place was not in quite the disorder Sher had represented, this was because his mother was a remarkable housekeeper. Felin, accompanied by Sher, made her way with accustomed ease through the maze of the upper caverns to find Exalt Benandi in her own office, near the kitchens.

On most mornings, the Exalt would have been delighted to see Felin. Felin was a favorite of hers, insofar as the Exalt allowed herself favorites. The Exalt certainly took a fond interest in Felin and approved of her as much as she approved of anyone. She herself had helped to bring Felin up, and had arranged her marriage to Penn. Felin was no relation to the Benandis. Her father, a dragon of gentle birth but small means, had been a comrade-in-arms of the Exalt’s late husband, Exalted Marshal Benandi. At about the time of Felin’s hatching they had been together in a skirmish on the Yarge frontier, and both been wounded. Felin’s father had died of his wounds almost immediately. The Marshal had recovered to some extent, but retired home, leaving the border to be defended by younger dragons. In bringing the news of his friend’s demise to his grieving widow and dragonets (the news was all he could bring, for the body had already been consumed by his comrades, as remains the immemorial custom of armies) he discovered them living in some distress. The kindhearted old Marshal brought them home to Benandi and provided them with a small establishment of their own. Felin’s brother unfortunately fell sick and was consumed
shortly afterwards, but the mother and daughter continued to live under Exalted Marshal Benandi’s protection until his death.