Hidden Cities (54 page)

He blushed, unexpectedly. All boy again, all human. She was delighted to see that.

“No,” she said, “I don’t suppose either.” She didn’t know what to suppose, this was all too much, too sudden, too new; but she didn’t think anyone would let her cross the strait to visit a dragon, either pregnant or with a babe in arms. “What about your friend, the doctor, Tien? I liked her, and she helped me. I wanted to bring her back here, but she wouldn’t come.”

“No,” he agreed. “She wouldn’t do that. She … does what she thinks is right. She tried to help Ping Wen, she chained me again, tried to chain the dragon.”

“Oh. Han, I’m sorry, but I’m sure …”

She wasn’t sure what she might be sure of, when it came to putting words together.

He was more sure, apparently; he was smiling, somewhat, as he said, “It’s all right. I know why she did it. And she knows more about the dragon than anybody. She stays with us. We belong, she and I.”

Which wasn’t quite
we belong together
, but it was perhaps the next best thing. Even if it meant
we belong to the dragon
, for now.

Mei Feng shook her head; their story wasn’t important, except to them. She gazed out at the night, felt the weight of the dragon at her back, thought she ought to be sending for men with chisels and hammers, against the beast’s impatience; realized she still didn’t understand.

Said, “Han. What does she want,”
she
the dragon, to be understood,
“with ambassadors, with a voice? With a city? Why deal with us at all? She doesn’t need to.”

“Oh,” he said, “yes. I think she does. I think she’s like you,” and he was blushing again, staring at her belly and twisting his head suddenly away, “I think she’s nesting.”

oiceless, senseless, the old woman drowses, lost in her lost body, adrift on tides of salt, slow salt.

V
OICELESS, PATIENT
, the goddess waits.

S
OMEONE WILL
come, again. Someone always comes.