Tooth and Claw (40 page)

Outside, the Exalt had bowed her head a little, to avoid having to look at the Yarge Ambassador. It was not just that they had killed her husband and that they were the ancestral enemy. It was some deeper loathing that moved in her, something beneath the skin, maybe some ancestral hatred of dragon for Yarge. She waited, breathing cold air and recovering herself. The shock was great when she looked up because some quality in the silence around her changed. She realized at once that the other dragons on the steps must have made way for him, for the Yarge was beside her before the door.

He was utterly abhorrent to her. He stood scarcely six feet high and had no length at all, barely a foot; he was essentially flat. He wore a decent fleece hat, as anyone might, and he had covered most of his body likewise with cloth and jewels. He had hands like a maiden, but his skin was soft and smooth, entirely without scales. He looked weak and unarmored and defenseless, yet beside him the strongest dragon was as weak as a maiden. At his side hung the tube of a gun, with the like of which his kind had once overpowered dragonkind.

He bowed, almost folding himself in half and the Exalt shuddered again.

“I am M’haarg, the Jh’oarg Ambassador,” he said, as he straightened.

The vile creature could hardly pronounce the name of his own species, the Exalt noted. “Exalt Zile Benandi,” she managed to gasp in response.

The door opened. “Next,” the servant said, sounding bored.

“Shall we?” the Yarge asked. He waited for the Exalt to move. She had to move. She was almost paralyzed with disgust. She managed to take a step and then another. He stayed beside her. He gave both their names to the servant.

Inside there was a whirl of dragons everywhere. The Exalt looked about her desperately for relief, for rescue. She felt as if she were in a nightmare. She could not scream. Everyone was here, every lord of Illustrious rank or above in the whole of Tiamath had been invited, and many of them had come. They would all see if she were to disgrace herself. She walked on, beside the Yarge. They would all see this too, but they would know it was nothing she had wanted. She saw August Fidrak in the crowd. Where was Sher? Probably with that terrible maiden he had chosen to spite her. Where was Felin? Felin was her true daughter, she wished she could find a way to tell her so. Or Penn? Her parson would be the ideal dragon to rescue her. Merciful Jurale, was there no dragon to come to her aid?

Then someone was by her side in a swirl of pink, a pretty chain of jewels wound in ribbons on her head. Selendra. Of course. The last dragon she would have wanted. The Exalt looked at Selendra, and saw the maiden realize how frightened she was. Now she would leave her again, rejoicing in her triumph.

Selendra did consider it. She came up to see how the Exalt would react to discovering that another despised Agornin would be set above her in rank. She found the Yarge exotic and strange, nasty perhaps, but not incapacitatingly terrible. The shadows that had
represented the Yarges in the play had been more frightening. Yet she saw by the whirling of the Exalt’s eyes that she was far gone in terror, incapable of speech, almost incapable of movement, only a little way from collapse. There was no doubt that she would embarrass herself when they reached Sebeth. Selendra had never before seen the Exalt shaken from her confident pedestal. She knew her mother-in-law was a selfish arrogant old dragon, with wrong-headed views of the way the world was. She knew they had been skirmishing, and that she could win a battle in their war if she left her alone and speechless. She did not like the Exalt, probably never would like her. Yet she could not see her toppled so utterly in what she most cared about. For Sher’s sake, and for her own, and because she deserved the dignity of a dragon if nothing else, Selendra spoke gently to her and drew her a little aside.

The Yarge Ambassador stopped. “Go on, please,” Selendra said to him. “I need to speak to my mother-in-law for a moment.”

“Of course,” the Yarge said, in his strange accent, and went on. “Delighted to meet you both.”

The Exalt looked into Selendra’s violet eyes, expecting to see triumph and finding only concern. “You did not mind my saying mother-in-law when that will not be quite true until the wedding?” Selendra asked, then went on, not waiting for an answer, giving the Exalt time to compose herself. “I have been arranging about bridal lace. It’s very expensive, because it takes so long to make, but we are buying so much between us, Haner and I, that they may give us a discount. Maybe I should see if I can persuade the Eminence Telstie to come in on that. Come and meet them now. Did you know that the new Eminent to be is my brother Avan?”

“What a lot of new relations you have brought to us, Selendra,” the Exalt managed to say, taking a step towards the new Eminence Telstie. She put her hand on the younger dragon’s arm
for support. “I know we have had our differences, but you are to marry Sher and become the mother of my grandsons, and I’d like you to know that after all, I am very pleased about that.”

It wasn’t entirely true, and both dragons knew how and where it was not entirely true, but they nodded to each other. And there, as Sher came to join them, as Avan and Sebeth waited to be greeted, as Penn danced with Felin and Haner with Londaver, as the servants carried heavy trays of refreshments about the room, we shall leave them to take refuge in the comfort of gentle hypocrisy.