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‘If she doesn’t, we’ll do our best tonight to come up with something for her.’ She spoke the words almost without thinking. She was becoming resigned, she suddenly realized, to sharing whatever she could bring back from her evening hunt. Most often it went to whatever dragon was hungriest. That did not endear her to Sintara, but the blue queen had not been exactly generous with Thymara. Let her find out that loyalty was supposed to run both ways.
The rest of that day, Thymara expected to feel echoing quakes, but if they came, they were so small that she didn’t notice them. When they camped that night on a mud bank, the main topic of discussion had been the quake, and whether or not a rush of acid water would follow it. After spending the meal hour chewing over the potential threat to all of them, Greft had suddenly stood and dismissed the topic. ‘Whatever will happen is going to happen,’ he said sternly as if expecting them to argue. ‘It’s useless to worry and impossible to prepare. So just be ready.’
He stalked away from their firelit circle into the darkness. No one spoke for a few minutes after he left. Thymara sensed awkwardness; doubtless Greft was still smarting from his misspoken words about the copper dragon. His pronouncement of the obvious seemed a feeble attempt to assert his leadership over them. Even his closest followers had seemed embarrassed for him. Neither Kase nor Boxter followed him or even looked in the direction he had gone. Thymara had kept her eyes on the flames, but from the corner of her eyes, she marked how shortly after that Jerd stood up, made a show of stretching, and then likewise wandered away from their company. As she passed behind Thymara, she bid her ‘Good night’ in a small catty voice. Thymara gritted her teeth and made no response.
‘What’s bothering her lately?’ Rapskal, to Thymara’s right, wondered aloud.
‘She’s just like that,’ Tats said in a low, sour voice.
‘I’m sure I don’t know what’s bothering her. And I’m off to bed now,’ Thymara replied. She wanted to get away from the firelight, lest anyone notice how embarrassed she was.
‘Good night, then,’ Tats muttered, a bit stiffly, as if her brusque reply was a rebuke to him.
‘I’ll be along shortly.’ Rapskal informed her cheerfully. She had not found a way to tell him that she didn’t really want him to sleep against her back each night. Once, when she’d gently told him that she didn’t need anyone to guard her, he’d replied cheerfully that he liked sleeping against her back.
‘It’s warmer, and if danger does come, I think you’ll probably wake up faster than me. And you’ve got a bigger knife, too.’ And so, to the veiled amusement of the others, he had become her constant night companion as well as her boat partner by day. In a way, she was fond of him but could not help but be annoyed by his constant presence. Ever since she had observed Greft and Jerd, she’d been troubled. She’d pondered it deeply on her own, and found no satisfying answers to her questions.
Could Greft just make new rules for himself? Could Jerd? If they could, what about the rest of them? She desperately wanted to find a quiet time to talk with Tats, but Rapskal was almost always present. And when he wasn’t following her about, Sylve was trailing after Tats. She wasn’t sure that she would actually tell Tats what she had seen, but she knew she did want to talk with someone about it.
When she had first returned to camp that night, she’d actually wondered if she should go to Captain Leftrin and let him know what was going on, as captain of the vessel that supported their expedition. Yet the more she thought about it, the more reluctant she felt to go to him. It would, she decided, fall somewhere between tattling and betrayal. No. What Jerd and Greft were doing was a matter that concerned the dragon keepers, and no others. They were the ones that had always been bound by those rules. It was a rule that had been imposed on them by others, others like Captain Leftrin, ones who were marked but did not restrict their own lives because of it. Was that fair? Was it right that someone else could make a decision like that, and bind her and the other keepers with it?
Every time she thought of what she had seen, her cheeks still burned. It was uncomfortable enough that she had seen them and was now aware of what they were doing. It was even worse to know that they knew of her spying. She felt unable to face them, and felt almost as uncomfortable in how she avoided them. Worse, Jerd’s little barbed remarks and Greft’s complacent stares made her feel as if she were the one in the wrong. That couldn’t be so. Could it?
What Greft and Jerd were doing ran counter to everything she’d ever been taught. Even if they had been wed, it would still have been wrong – not that they would have been allowed to wed. When the Rain Wilds marked a child heavily from birth, all knew that it was best to expose the baby and try again. Such children seldom lived past their fifth birthdays. In a place where scarcity was the norm, it was foolish for parents to pour effort and resources into such a child. Better to give it up at birth, and try for another baby as soon as possible. Those like Thymara who, by fluke or stubbornness, survived were forbidden to take mates, let alone have children.
So if what they were doing was wrong, why was she the one who felt not only guilty but foolish? She wrapped her blanket more tightly around herself and stared off into the darkness. She could still hear the others talking and sometimes laughing around the fire. She wished she were with them, wished she could still enjoy the companionship of their journey. Somehow Jerd and Greft had spoiled that for her. Did the others know about it, and not care? What would they think of her if she told them? Would they turn on Greft and Jerd? Would they turn on her and laugh at her, for thinking she was still bound? Not knowing the answers made her feel childish.
She was still awake when Rapskal came to take his blanket from their boat. She watched him from under her lashes as he came to her cloaked in his blanket. He stepped over her, sat down with his back to her, and then snugged himself up against her back. He heaved a great sigh and within a few moments fell into a deep sleep.
His weight was warm against her back. She thought how she could just roll over to face him, and how that would wake him. She wondered what would happen next? Rapskal, for all his oddness, was physically handsome. His pale blue eyes were at once unsettling and strangely attractive. Despite his scaling, he’d kept his long dark eyelashes. She didn’t love him, well, not that way, but he was undeniably an attractive male. She caught her lower lip between her teeth, thinking about what she had seen Jerd and Greft doing. She doubted that Jerd loved Greft, or that he cared deeply for her. They’d been arguing, right before they’d done it. What did that mean? Rapskal’s back was warm against hers through the blankets, but a sudden shiver ran over her. It was a quiver, not of chill, but of possibility.
Moving very slowly, she edged her body away from his. No. Not tonight. Not by impulse, not without thought. No. It did not matter what others did. She had to think for herself about such things.
Dawn came too soon, and brought no answers with it. She sat up stiffly, unable to tell if she had slept or not. Rapskal slept on, as did most of the others. The dragons were not early risers. Many of the keepers had taken to sleeping in almost as late as the dragons did. But for Thymara, old habits died hard. Light had always wakened her, and she’d always known from her father that the early hours were the best for hunting or for gathering. So despite her weariness, she rose. She stood a time looking thoughtfully down on Rapskal. His dark lashes curled on his cheeks; his mouth was relaxed, full and soft. His hands were curled in loose fists under his chin. His nails were pinker than they had been. She bent closer for a better look. Yes, they were changing. Scarlet to match his little dragon. She found herself smiling about that and realized that she could smell him, a male musk that was not at all repellent. She straightened up and drew back from him. What was she thinking? That he smelled good? How had Jerd chosen Greft, she wondered, and why? Then she folded her blanket and restored it to her boat.
Part of the camp routine each night was to dig a sand well. The hole was dug some distance away from the water’s edge, and then lined with canvas. The water that seeped up in the shallow hole and filtered through the canvas was always less acid than the river water. Even so, she approached it with caution. She saw with relief that this morning the river was still running almost clear, so she judged it safe to wash her face and hands and drank deeply. The cold water shocked the last vestiges of sleep from her mind. Time to face the day.
Most of the others were still bundled in their blankets around the smouldering embers of last night’s fire. They looked, she thought, rather like blue cocoons. Or dragon cases. She yawned again and decided to take a walk along the water’s edge with her pole spear. With a bit of luck, she’d find either breakfast for herself or a snack for Sintara.
Fish would be nice. Meat would be better. The sleepy thought from the dragon confirmed her impulse.
‘Fish,’ Thymara replied firmly, speaking aloud as she shared her thoughts with the dragon. ‘Unless I happen to encounter small game at the river’s edge. But I’m not going into the forest at the beginning of the day. I don’t want to be late when everyone else wakes up and is ready for travel.’
Are you sure that you don’t fear what you might see back there? The dragon’s question had a small barb to it.
‘I don’t fear it. I just don’t want to see it,’ Thymara retorted. She tried, with limited success, to close her mind to the dragon’s touch. She could refuse to hear Sintara’s words, but not evade her presence.
Thymara had had time to think of Sintara’s role in her discovery. She was sure that the dragon had deliberately sent her after Greft and Jerd, that she had been aware of what they were doing, and had used every means at her disposal to be sure that Thymara witnessed it. It still stung when she thought of how Sintara had used her glamour to compel her to follow Greft’s trail into the forest.
What she didn’t know was why the dragon had sent her after them, and she hadn’t asked directly. She’d already learned that the fastest way to make Sintara lie to her was to ask her a direct question. She’d learn more by waiting and listening. Not so different from dealing with my mother, she thought, and smiled grimly to herself.
She pushed the thought out of her mind and immersed herself in her hunting. She could find peace in this hour. Few of the other keepers roused so early. The dragons might stir but were not active, preferring to let the sun grow strong and warm them before they exerted themselves. She had the riverbank to herself as she quietly stalked the water’s edge, spear poised. She forgot everything else but herself and her prey as the world balanced perfectly around her. The sky was a blue stripe above the river’s wide channel. Along the river’s edge, knee-high reeds shivered in water that was almost clear. The smooth mudbank of the river had recorded every creature that had come and gone in the night. While the dragon keepers had slumbered, at least two swamp elk had come down to the water’s edge and then retreated. Something with webbed feet had clambered out on the bank, eaten freshwater clams and discarded the shells, and then slid back in.
She saw a large whiskered fish come groping into the shallows. He did not seem to see her. His barbels stirred the silt and with a snap he gobbled some small creature he had ousted. He ventured closer to where she stood, spear poised, but the instant she jabbed with her weapon, he was gone with a flick of his tail, leaving only a haze of silt floating around her spear.
‘Damn the luck,’ she muttered, and pulled her spear back out of the silt.
‘That doesn’t sound like a prayer,’ Alise rebuked her gently.
Thymara tried not to be startled. She brought her spear back to the ready, glanced at the woman over her shoulder and resumed her slow patrol of the riverbank. ‘I’m hunting. I missed.’
‘I know. I saw.’
Thymara kept walking, her eyes on the river, hoping the Bingtown woman would take the hint and leave her alone. She didn’t hear Alise following her, but from the corner of her eye, she was aware of Alise’s shadow keeping pace with her. After holding her silence for a time, Thymara defiantly decided she wasn’t afraid of the woman. She spoke to her. ‘It’s early for you to be out and about.’
‘I couldn’t sleep. I’ve been up since before dawn. And I confess that a deserted riverbank can be lonely after an hour or so. I was relieved to see you.’
The comment was far more friendly than she had expected. Why was the woman even speaking to her? Could she truly be that lonely? Without pausing to think she said, ‘But you have Sedric to keep you company. How can you be lonely?’
‘He still isn’t well. And, well, he has not been as friendly to me of late. Not without cause, I’m ashamed to say.’
Thymara stared into the river, glad that the Bingtown woman could not see her expression of astonishment. Was she confiding in her? Why? What could she possibly think they had in common? Curiosity dug its claws into her and hung on until she asked, in what she hoped was a casual voice, ‘What cause has he to be unfriendly to you?’
Alise sighed heavily. ‘Well, you know he hasn’t been well. Sedric usually has excellent health, so it would be hard for him to be ill at any time. But it is especially hard for him when he is in what he regards as very uncomfortable living circumstances. His bed is narrow and hard, he doesn’t like the smell of the boat or the river, the food either bores or disgusts him, his room is dim, there is no entertainment for him. He’s miserable. And it’s my fault that he’s here. He didn’t want to come to the Rain Wilds, let alone embark on this expedition.’
Another big lunker had come into the shallows, investigating the silt. For an instant, he seemed to see her. Thymara stood perfectly still. Then, as he began to sift the silt with his whiskers, she struck. She was so sure that she had hit him, it was a surprise to have the silt clear and find that her spear was simply dug into the mud. She pulled it out.
‘You missed again,’ the Bingtown woman said, but there was genuine sympathy in her voice. ‘I was so sure you got that one. But they’re very quick to react, aren’t they? I don’t think I could ever manage to spear one.’
‘Oh, it just takes practice,’ Thymara assured her, keeping her eyes on the water. No, it was gone, long gone. That one wouldn’t be back.
‘Have you been doing this since you were a child?’
‘Fishing? Not so much.’ Thymara continued her slow patrol along the water’s edge. Alise kept pace with her. She kept her voice soft. ‘I hunted in the canopy mainly. Birds and small mammals up there, some lizards and some pretty big snakes. Fishing isn’t that different from hunting birds when it comes to the stalking part.’
‘Do you think I could learn?’
Thymara halted in her tracks and turned round to face Alise. ‘Why would you want to?’ she asked in honest confusion.
Alise blushed and looked down. ‘It would be nice to be able to do something real. You’re so much younger than I am, but you’re so competent at taking care of yourself. I envy you that. Sometimes I watch you and the other keepers, and I feel so useless. Like a pampered little house cat watching hunting cats at work. Lately I’ve been trying to justify why I came along, why I dragged poor Sedric along with me. I said I was going to be collecting information about dragons. I said I’d be needed here to help people deal with the dragons. I told my husband and Sedric that this was a priceless opportunity for me to learn, and to share what I’d learn. I told the Elderling Malta that I knew about the lost city and could possibly help the dragons find their way back. But I’ve done none of those things.’
Her voice dropped on her last words and she sounded ashamed.
Thymara was silent. Was this grand Bingtown lady looking to her for comfort and reassurance? That seemed all wrong. Just when the silence would have become too obvious, she found her tongue. ‘You have helped with the dragons, I think. You were there when Captain Leftrin was helping us get the snakes off them, and before, when we were bandaging up the silver’s tail. I was surprised, I’ll admit. I thought you were too fine a lady for messy work like that—’
‘Fine a lady?’ Alise interrupted her. She laughed in an odd shrill way. ‘You think me a fine lady?’
‘Well … of course. Look at how you dress. And you are from Bingtown, and you are a scholar. You write scrolls about dragons and you know all about the Elderlings.’ She ran out of reasons and just stood looking at Alise. Even today, to walk on the beach at dawn, the woman had dressed her hair and pinned it up. She wore a hat to protect her hair and face from the sun. She wore a shirt and trousers, but they were clean and pressed. The tops of her boots were gleaming black even if fresh river mud clung to her feet. Thymara glanced at herself. The mud that caked her boots and laces was days, not hours, old. Her shirt and her trousers both bore the signs of hard use and little washing. And her hair? Without thinking, she reached up to touch her dark braids. When had she last washed her hair and smoothed it and rebraided it? When had she last washed her entire body?
‘I married a wealthy man. My family is, well, our fortune is humbler. I suppose that I am a lady, when I am in Bingtown, and perhaps it is a fine thing to be. But here, well, here in the Rain Wilds I’ve begun to see myself a bit differently. To wish for different things than I did before.’ Her voice died away. Then she said suddenly, ‘If you wanted, Thymara, you could come to my cabin this evening. I could show you a different way to do your hair. And you’d have some privacy if you wished to take a bath, even if the tub is scarcely big enough to stand in.’
‘I know how to wash myself!’ Thymara retorted, stung.
‘I’m sorry,’ Alise said immediately. Her cheeks had gone very red. She blushed more scarlet than anyone Thymara had ever known. ‘My words were not … I didn’t express what I was trying to say. I saw you look at yourself, and thought how selfish I’ve been, to have privacy to bathe and dress while you and Sylve and Jerd have had to live rough and in the open among the boys and men. I didn’t mean—’
‘I know.’ Were they the hardest words Thymara had ever had to say? Probably not, but they were hard enough. She didn’t meet Alise’s eyes. She forced out other words. ‘I know you meant it kindly. My father often told me that I take offence too easily. That not everyone wants to insult me.’ Her throat was getting smaller and tighter. The pain of unsheddable tears was building at the inner corners of her eyes. From forcing words, suddenly she couldn’t stop them. ‘I don’t expect people to like me or be nice to me. It’s the opposite. I expect—’
‘You don’t have to explain,’ Alise said suddenly. ‘We’re more alike than you think we are.’ She gave a shaky laugh. ‘Sometimes, do you find reasons to disdain people you haven’t met yet, just so you can dislike them before they dislike you?’
‘Well of course,’ Thymara admitted, and the laughter they shared had a brittle edge. A bird flew up from the river’s edge, startling them both, and then their laughter became more natural, ending as they both drew breath.
Alise wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. ‘I wonder if this is what Sintara wanted me to learn from you. She strongly suggested this morning that I seek you out. Do you think she wanted us to discover that we are not so different?’ The woman’s voice was warm when she spoke of the dragon, but a chill went up Thymara’s back at her words.
‘No,’ she said quietly. She tried to form her thought carefully, so as not to hurt Alise’s feelings. She wasn’t sure, just yet, if she wanted to be as friendly as the Bingtown woman seemed inclined to be, but she didn’t want to put her on her guard again. ‘No, I think Sintara was manipulating you, well, us. A couple of days ago, she pushed me to do something, and well, it didn’t turn out nicely at all.’ She glanced at Alise, fearing what she’d see, but the Bingtown woman looked thoughtful, not affronted. ‘I think she may be trying to see just how much power she has over us. I’ve felt her glamour. Have you?’
‘Of course. It’s a part of her. I don’t know if a dragon can completely control the effect she has on humans. It’s her nature. Just as a human dominates a pet dog.’
‘I’m not her pet,’ Thymara retorted. Fear sharpened her words. Did Sintara dominate her more than she realized?
‘No. You’re not, and neither am I. Though I suspect she considers me more her pet than anything else. I think she respects you, because you can hunt. But she has told me, more than once, that I fail to assert myself as a female. I’m not sure why, but I think I disappoint her.’
‘She pushed me to go hunting this morning. I told her I preferred to fish.’
‘She told me to follow you when you hunted. I saw you here on the riverbank.’
Thymara was quiet. She lifted her fish spear again and walked slowly along the river’s edge, thinking. Was it betrayal? Then she spoke. ‘I know what she wanted you to see. The same thing I saw. I think she wanted you to know that Jerd and Greft have been mating.’
She waited for a response. When none came, she looked back at Alise. The Bingtown woman’s cheeks were pink again but she tried to speak calmly. ‘Well. I suppose that, living like this, with no privacy and little supervision, it is easy for a young girl to give in to a young man’s urging. They would not be the first to sample the dinner before the table is set. Do you know if they intend to marry?’
Thymara stared at her. She put her words together carefully. ‘Alise, people like me, like them, people who are already so heavily touched by the Rain Wilds, we are not allowed to marry. Or to mate. They are breaking one of the oldest rules of the Rain Wilds.’
‘It’s a law, then?’ Alise looked puzzled.
‘I … I don’t know if it’s a law. It’s a custom, it’s something everyone knows and does. If a baby is born and it’s already changed so much from pure human, then its parents don’t raise it. They “give it to the night”; they expose it and try again. Only for some of us, like me, well, my father took me back. He brought me home and kept me.’
‘There’s a fish there, a really big one. He’s in the shadow of that driftwood log. See him? He looks like he’s part of the shadow.’
Alise sounded excited. Thymara was jolted at the change of subject. On an impulse, she handed her spear to Alise. ‘You get him. You saw him first. Remember, don’t try to jab the fish. Stab it in like you want to stick it into the ground beyond the fish. Push hard.’
‘You should do it,’ Alise said as she took the spear. ‘I’ll miss. He’ll get away. And he’s a very big fish.’
‘Then he’s a good big target for your first try. Go on. Try it.’ Thymara stepped slowly back and away from the river.
Alise’s pale eyes widened. Her glance went from Thymara to the fish and back again. Then she took two deep shuddering breaths and then suddenly sprang at the fish, spear in hand. She landed with a splash and a shout in ankle-deep water as she stabbed the spear down with far more force than she needed to use. Thymara stared open-mouthed as the Bingtown woman used both hands to drive the spear in even deeper. Surely the fish was long gone? But no, Alise stood in the water, holding the spear tightly as a long, thick fish thrashed out its death throes.
When it finally stilled, she turned to Thymara and cried breathlessly, ‘I did it! I did it! I speared a fish! I killed it!’
‘Yes, you did. And you should get out of the water before you ruin your boots.’
‘I don’t care about them. I got a fish. Can I try again? Can I kill another?’
‘I suppose you can. Alise, let’s get the first one ashore, shall we?’
