Tooth and Claw (14 page)

Sebeth blinked. “You’re not going to the office?”

“I’ll look in later,” Avan said, settling the cap firmly between his ears.

“But what about Liralen and Kest? They’ll be expecting you.”

“Tell Liralen I’ll be in towards noon,” Avan said, adjusting the strap. “It’s none of Kest’s business where I am, so let him wonder.”

“Don’t you think it would be wise to go in first?” Sebeth asked, her eyes beginning to turn more rapidly.

“No,” Avan said. “I need to arrange for the gold, right away.”

“Hathor?” Sebeth asked, turning to the bronze mirror and pinning her hat carefully at a jaunty angle.

“Of course,” Avan answered. He didn’t say anything further about the lawsuit. She had already expressed her disapproval, and it wasn’t her business.

She turned from the mirror to look straight at him. “There are those in the office who will seek to take advantage of your father’s death,” she said.

“Meaning Kest?”

“Not meaning anyone in particular, just that everyone will be reassessing where everyone else is standing now. It’s a change, and a change that makes a real difference to your position.” She looked away, closed the wardrobe and picked up her office bag.

“I know,” Avan said. “And that is a good reason for coming in nonchalantly late, a dragon with business to settle. If I scurried in the moment I was back in town, eager to catch up with whatever they’ve piled up for me to scratch through, they would see that as weakness.” Avan smiled.

“You’re right,” Sebeth said. “You have the touch for making your way, you know how to behave. If I were to try it, I should be eaten up on the first day.”

Avan laughed. “You know your way and I know mine. That’s why we get on so well together.”

Sebeth laughed, and rubbed her snout caressingly against his. “I’ll see you in the office when you can make it in, o busy one.”

“Don’t forget the letters,” he reminded her. She rolled her eyes once deliberately, mocking his cautions and reminders, as always.

He opened the back door and left. Sebeth stood still for a moment after he had gone, waiting and listening. Then she opened the wardrobe again and took out another quite different hat. This one was made of black lace, folded and pinned with a comb, so that it would have been difficult for even the most charitably inclined to call it anything other than a mantilla. This hat she slipped into her bag, then she made her way up the slope to collect the piles of letters.

Hathor’s offices were in the Migantine quarter. This was convenient for most of his clients, and for the City, but it meant that Avan, who lived within walking distance of his office near the Cupola, had to cover almost the whole length of Irieth to reach him. There were other attorneys nearer at hand, many of them more fashionable, but Hathor’s father and then Hathor himself had served old Bon, and Avan felt he could rely on him as he could never have counted on a stranger. Accordingly, as soon as he was safely out of the house he blinked his middle lids over his eyes to protect himself from the morning sunlight, made sure his hat was seated safely on his head, and rose straight up on the early morning winds.

Flying in Irieth could never be the joy it was in the country. Many dragons refused to fly at all in the capital, saying it was dangerous as well as unpleasant, because of the unpredictable winds caused by the buildings and the heat of so many dragons living together. They walked the streets, or hired drafters and carriages. Avan thought of them as soft. He had flown from Agornin back to Irieth, and he would fly to see Hathor. In his secret soul he liked to think that if he had found himself one of the solitary dragons of the heroic age, relying on his wings and his claws for his life, he would have made a good showing.

He rose rapidly, not stopping until he had gained enough height to be safe from the worst of the unpredictable low winds. From up here, the city looked beautiful. He could see the patterns made of the tiles on the rooftops, and the accidental patterns made by so many rooftops together. He swept by the six towers of the Cupola, taking care not to fly directly above them, and glimpsed children playing down in the courtyard. The houses were silent, but the streets were full of early commerce—here a market selling fruit, fresh from the country, there beeves and swine being driven from the railway to their final market. The silver shining lines of the railway led from the grand arches of the Cupola station across the city. Avan followed them, swooping along, with the sky almost to himself. He descended at last only when he had come to the region of squat stone hemispherical buildings that marked out the Migantine quarter.

Hathor’s outer office was spacious. It had a typically Migantine barrel-vault ceiling, making it seem pleasantly cavernous. On the walls were old-fashioned two-color ground-level views of Migantil. Several clerks, all respectable maiden dragons of various shades of gold and beige, sat busily writing at desks around the room. There
was space for three or even four waiting clients to seat themselves, if they were careful. There was only one client waiting when Avan arrived, though he was probably as large as two of Hathor’s usual clients. Avan was surprised to see such a very prosperous dragon there, and even more surprised when he recognized him as his acquaintance the Exalted Rimalin. He had not known, and was a little surprised to discover that the other dragon did business with Hathor. All the while, as he gave his name to Hathor’s clerk, he felt Rimalin’s gaze on his back.

“Well, Respectable Agornin,” Rimalin said, as Avan came to sit beside him, curling around so that his head rested on his tail. “Or should I say Dignified now?”

“Not yet,” Avan said, and smiled so that his teeth showed. He thought Rimalin meant it kindly, but he had not needed Sebeth’s reminder that others would be reassessing his position.

Rimalin laughed, putting his head back to expose his throat and thus demonstrate his complete confidence in Avan’s friendship. Then he sobered rapidly and looked Avan in the eyes. “I believe Ketinar wrote to express our condolences on your loss,” he said.

“I am very grateful to the Exalt and to you for your thoughts of me,” Avan said, politely. “I received her note last night, as soon as I was back in Irieth.”

“Then you’re only just back?” Rimalin leaned back a little to see more of Avan.

“I flew in last night, very late,” Avan confirmed.

“And you’ve come here first? I hadn’t known you were one of Hathor’s clients,” Rimalin said.

“I hadn’t known
you
were,” Avan replied warily. “Or is this a new venture?”

“We politicians like to spread our business about,” Rimalin said, with a flick of his wing. “But I’ve been dealing with Hathor for years.”

“He was my father’s attorney, and I’ve been using him all this time,” Avan said. “I find him very reliable.”

“I have found the same, but confirmation is always good,” Rimalin said.

“You can’t judge an attorney by the decor of his outer office,” Avan said, one of the terrible Migantine pictures catching his eye.

Rimalin laughed again. “Ketinar outright asked Hathor about them once. He said that his father bought them in Migantil, when he was a young dragon.”

Avan looked at the one in front of him again. The sky was pink and the outline of the buildings blue. “You mean that they were actually painted by Yargish hands?”

“I can’t vouch for it, but that’s what Hathor told Ketinar.”

“I don’t know if that makes them better or worse,” Avan said, in horrified fascination.

“Oh, worse, old chap, definitely worse. But one does see why it is that Hathor doesn’t replace them. It’s always the same with old family things, you have to hang on to them whether they’re ugly or beautiful, valuable or valueless, they don’t really belong to any one person, they exist to be passed along to the next generation. We have a lot of things like that out at Rimalin, lot of nonsense really, but I wouldn’t touch them all the same.”

“No, how could you?” Avan murmured, thinking that it could be little hardship when he spent so much time in the city, where his house was furnished completely in the most fashionable modern style.

“I wonder if you might like to come and stay with us in Rimalin
some time? This winter, perhaps, if they can do without you in the Planning Office for a little while?”

Avan was so astonished he could not speak for a moment. He had many friends in Irieth, especially since his job required him to move on the fringes of political circles, but had never before been asked out of the capital. He had counted Ketinar, the Exalt Rimalin, as his friend, but her husband had never before been quite so forthcoming. His father’s death had clearly changed his status in ways he had not yet been able to assess. “I’d love to,” he stammered. “If I can get away.”

“I’ll have Ketinar send you a proper invitation, good for any time you can spare us a few days,” Rimalin said.

Just then the door to the inner office opened and a young, very beautiful dragon maiden came out, followed by her very large, very formidable ruby red mother. “Isn’t she gorgeous? Dowry arrangements do you think?” Avan ventured very quietly.

Rimalin said nothing until the outer doors had closed behind the pair. “That is the charming Respected Gelener Telstie, and her no less charming mother Blest Telstie,” he said. “Gelener is one of the most marriageable maidens on the market this year, and for the last two years, but if a marriage has been arranged, it hasn’t yet been announced.”

One of the clerks rose and gestured to Rimalin to go in to see Hathor. The door was open, and Avan could just get a glimpse of the inner office where Hathor crouched on papers and books as most dragons would on gold. “I have to go. But come and see me soon. And if you have any capital to venture, don’t tie it all up before you’ve spoken to me. I have something to suggest.”

“I read your note, but—” Avan began, but Rimalin was already on his feet.

“There’s no terrible hurry about it,” Rimalin said, and walked into Hathor’s inner office, closing the door carefully behind him.

Avan reached the Planning Office a little before noon. The gold had been placed on deposit for the time being, and Hathor had made arrangements for collecting it. After hearing all the facts, Hathor had agreed Avan had a case, though not as good a case as he would have if Haner and Selendra would join with him. The writ against Daverak had nevertheless been issued, and would be sent out the next morning. As he flew back, happy with his morning, Avan had considered making himself even later by visiting a public bathhouse. He thought better of it. He could not afford to lose his position. He wished to appear confident, not insolent. Besides, he had sluiced himself only three mornings before in the chilly river Nia that flowed through the Agornin demesne. Too frequent bathing was supposed to be bad for the scales. He smiled, showing his teeth a little, then straightened his cap, pushed away hesitation, and walked confidently in through the archway.

Kest was leaning over Sebeth where she was attempting to write letters. Kest was a fine bronze-scaled dragon, much the same size as Avan, a little over twenty feet long, and therefore almost twice the size of Sebeth. “You have time to do this copying,” Kest said, caressingly, leaning closer. Avan paused where he was.

“Have your own clerk do it,” Sebeth said, icily, withdrawing as far as she could behind the block of granite that was Avan’s desk.

“I don’t have a clerk, as you well know, little Eminence, and the drudge who does all the copying won’t get to mine until tomorrow now.”

“I fail to see why this is my problem,” Sebeth said, squaring some papers and looking up at Kest.

“Oh, you fail to see why it’s your problem,” Kest echoed, mimicking her voice. “Well, it’s about time you did see, and stopped giving yourself airs, little Eminence v—. It’s your problem because when Avan gets back, if he does, he won’t have a position here and I’ll be taking over his responsibilities, and that includes your pretty—”

Avan had heard enough. On the word “v—” he had entered the room, and before Kest could speak the obscenity Avan’s claw had taken him under the armpit and tipped him sideways. Before Kest could recover himself, Avan leaped forward, his whole weight falling onto Kest’s thorax, his teeth at his throat. Avan had the advantage of surprise, and perhaps a little that of size also. He had grown since eating his father’s body. Kest owned himself defeated immediately, denying Avan the pleasures of the fight and the hope of eventually killing and eating his opponent. Kest laid his claws and tail flat and closed his eyes. For a moment Avan regretted that he was a civilized dragon, then he was reminded of the tussling he had done with his sibs long ago. Poor Merinth had signalled surrender just like that.

He lifted his head a little, ready to bite again if necessary. “Do you yield?” he asked.

“I do,” Kest said, faintly. Avan was still lying on him, almost choking him.

“And do you yield position in the office?”

“I do,” said Kest, opening his eyes a crack.

“And do you apologize to my clerk and promise never to so insult her again?” Avan asked, keeping his weight where it was.

“I do,” Kest echoed, and when Avan did not move, added, “I apologize, ’Spec Sebeth, for insulting you and swear I will not do so again.”

Somewhat reluctantly, Avan backed off and allowed Kest to
breathe freely. “Tell anyone else you may know who thinks to intrigue for my position that I am back, and not reluctant for a struggle, if that is necessary,” Avan said.

“Yes, no, I’m sure nobody will bother you now, Dignified,” Kest said, backing away, coughing a little. Still backing, he went through the arch that led to the other offices.

Avan picked up his cap, which had fallen off at some point in the struggle. He smiled wryly at Sebeth, who looked flushed and excited. “You did warn me,” he said. “Is he always that obnoxious when I’m not around?”

“Little Eminence is his usual name for me,” she said, and spread one hand in incomprehension. “Trying to impose on me to do his copying because he thinks it’s important is something he’s done before. He’s always been more familiar than he should, he clearly thinks my status is ambiguous and wants to take advantage of that.” She looked down at her exquisitely pink shoulder and sighed. “The rest was new.”