Tooth and Claw (15 page)

“I should have killed him,” Avan said, staring at the doorway where Kest had disappeared.

“With all that envy and covetousness and scheming coursing ’round his blood, he probably tastes disgusting,” Sebeth said.

Avan laughed. “If he says anything to you again, anything beyond ordinary chilly politeness, anything you don’t want to hear, tell me,” he said. “I’m prepared to take the risk on how he tastes.”

Sebeth opened her mouth to answer, but before she could speak, Liralen came bustling in. Liralen was an elderly dragon, black scaled, almost fifty feet long. He carried a file under his arm, not just at that moment but almost all the time.

“Oh Avan, Kest told me you were back,” he said. “My condolences on the death of your father.”

“Thank you. And thank you for your note of condolence. I was
held up with some urgent family business first thing this morning,” Avan said.

“Oh, that’s of no consideration, as you’re here now,” Liralen said. Trust Liralen to care about nothing but work. “ ’Spec Sebeth informed me. But while you were away rather a difficult situation has come up concerning building rights in the Skamble.” The Skamble was one of the very rough areas of Irieth, across the river. Sebeth moved some papers on the desk, making both the others suddenly aware of her presence.

“Is this confidential?” Avan asked.

“Tolerably, but not from your clerk,” Liralen said, with a wintry smile that was all in his pale eyes. “I’ll leave the folder with you. I didn’t have time for it myself, but I couldn’t trust anyone else to deal with this properly, so it has been waiting for your return.”

Avan felt the implicit reproach, but as he had been to his own father’s deathbed and stayed away less than two weeks, a scant nine days, he did not feel the slightest guilt.

“I’ll become conversant with the details and deal with it as soon as I can,” he said, taking the folder. This particular folder was pale lavender colored. Liralen handed it over reluctantly and looked almost naked without it.

“It’s a delicate matter,” Liralen said. “You’ll see when you read it. Let me know what action you decide on.”

Avan blinked, startled. Generally he investigated, then thought out possible actions and then put the possibilities before Liralen, he did not decide for himself. This responsibility was something new.

“Is this promotion?” he asked, daring to say it outright.

Liralen hesitated. Sebeth lowered her head over her papers and tried to look inconspicuous. Avan waited calmly.

“It may be,” Liralen said. “It may be indeed.” He paused, looking at Sebeth with clear disapproval. “I am getting older, and in a year or
two I can take my pension and go home. At that time, somebody will be wanted to take my place here, and I would prefer it to be someone who gets the work done and not someone with no idea of propriety.”

This was the first time Liralen had ever mentioned retirement to Avan. Avan tried to still the frantic whirling of his eyes. What did Liralen mean about propriety? He knew his superior disapproved of Sebeth on principle—she was pink, but unmarried, and therefore by definition not a respectable dragon. There was no appeal, and though Avan had staunchly represented his employing her as redeeming the unfortunate, he knew Liralen had only grudgingly become reconciled to her when he saw how good her work was.

“Propriety?” he ventured to ask.

“It is not so long since dragons have been dismissed from this office for partiality,” Liralen said. “There are others still with us who appear to believe they are living in the days before the Conquest when promotion could best be achieved through violence. You, I am glad to note, are not one of those.”

Avan, still full of the exhilaration of beating Kest, tried to look peaceable.

“I’ll look forward to seeing how you deal with this case, and so will the Board,” Liralen said. The Board were shining figures to whom Liralen answered. Avan bowed his head at the mention of their name. “Well, there is work to be done,” Liralen finished.

“I’ll do what I can to make up for lost time,” Avan agreed, and opened the folder at once.

Just before sunset, Sebeth left the Planning Office. Avan was still working, engrossed in the contents of the folder Liralen had
brought him earlier. He had spent some time catching up on what she had done in his name in his absence, but always he returned to the lavender folder. He barely grunted a farewell as she left. She walked from the Cupola in the direction of the river. Nobody had asked her where she was going, and nobody seemed to pay any attention to her. She walked through the park, ignoring the fashionable strollers and the millworkers alike. Occasionally she saw a clerk she knew, and they exchanged a nod or a word. Though they were generally polite, none of them were her friends, most of them found her suspicious. She knew they thought she should not be in respectable employment. She preferred strangers, who had no way of knowing she was not a bride.

When she came to the promenade by the river she hesitated, and turned around, scanning the walks to make sure nobody was watching her. She paused, as if hesitating as to left or right on the river walk. Right would have taken her towards the shops and entertainments and grand Houses of the fashionable Southwest and Marshalling quarters, while left would have brought her back towards the mills and offices of the Cupola and Toris districts, and at length home.

Once she was sure she was unobserved, she took off her hat, the marker of her status and respectability, and folded it into her bag. Then she ignored the promenade and walked with rapid and assured steps across the high-arched stone bridge that crossed the river Toris. Once on the other side she continued to walk with confidence, tracing her steps without hesitation through the twists and turns of the narrow streets. She was soon in the quarter lying between the river and the railway tracks which was known as the Skamble. She wondered as she went about the contents of that lavender folder. Building rights, in the Skamble? Every claw’s width that could be built on was built on already, though much of it was covered with wretched
shacks where poor mill workers scratched out what comfort they could between thin patched walls. The roads were narrow and the buildings huddled together as if for warmth. There were few open spaces, and those there were had clearly been caused by recent fires.

At last, when the sun was almost down, she came to a church, larger but hardly better built than the houses around it. She paused for a moment, again looked both ways, though nobody at all was in sight, then pulled her mantilla from her bag and set it on her head. She could not help feeling a thrill of excitement at doing something illicit. Going to a church of the Old Believers was no longer illegal, except for a parson, but it was certainly frowned upon. Many things fall in the shadows between the bright light of illegality and the comforting darkness of approval. Avan could certainly not have continued to employ her as a clerk had her religious affiliation become known. She pushed away the excitement, murmuring a prayer to Veld for clarity of mind. Then she put a claw to the wooden door, which swung open, and went straight in.

The room Sebeth entered was much like any church in a poor quarter. It was a dim vault, barely half underground, half-filled with dragons, many of them with the bound wings of servitude, all of them small, hardly one of them longer than seven feet except the priest, who stood at the center of the narthex, about to begin his service. Such a sight could be seen in any church on any Firstday morning or the evening of any day. Only the nodding mantillas and the carved wooden side-doors that led to the confession room marked it out as in any way different. A visitor seeing those might have been surprised as Sebeth gestured and joined the prayers, but surprised because nobody was feasting on cooked meat or howling out grotesque and titillating confessions, merely behaving as any dragon might have in any congregation. Even the prayers were the same.

The one theological difference could be seen on the doors. As
in most churches, the walls were covered with the carved intertwined and writhing forms of the gods. Jurale’s great dark eyes whirled sympathetic understanding from all the walls, Veld’s pictured face was wise and stern, the world lay clutched safely between his claws. They were immediately recognizable as themselves. There were no pictures of Camran, except those on the doors. These representations would have made most dragons blink, and some run screaming heresy. Camran was pictured on the left bringing the Book of the Law, and on the right as walking up to the Cave of Azashan, as he might be anywhere, but the artist in this church had depicted him as a Yarge, soft, wingless, and unarmed.

A parson, if any had dared enter this church, might not have been so surprised. There were old books that showed Camran this way. Penn, for instance, had been taught at the Circle that this was an old symbolic way of showing Camran’s peaceful nature and humility, much like the way Avenging Veld could be shown as the harsh noon-day sun and Jurale as a sheltering mountain. But the Old Believers, and Sebeth with them, did not see it as a symbol, like the red cords that bound the wings of priest or parson, they really did believe that Camran had been a Yarge.

After the service, Sebeth waited before the doors, praying patiently, until it was her turn to confess. The priest, who called himself Blessed Calien, absolved her, as always, of living with Avan without the sacrament of marriage, and on this occasion of coveting Avan’s gold and reproaching him for starting his lawsuit, all the details of which she told Calien when he inquired. Then, with a little more hesitation, he forgave her for having enjoyed seeing the two dragons fighting over her that afternoon. “It may be our nature, but Camran taught us that we can overcome our nature and surpass it. May you with Veld’s grace do better if such temptation comes your way again. Is that all?”

“There is one more thing, Blessed One,” she said. “It isn’t a sin of mine, and indeed telling you may be a sin, for Liralen said it was tolerably confidential. But Avan has been given a certain folder concerning building rights in the Skamble, and I wondered if it was best to warn you about it.”

“You did right, little sister,” Calien said. “Tell me all that you discover of this affair as it passes through your hands. The lesser sin of betraying your employers will be offset by the great help you do to the nurturing egg of the Church.”

“Yes, Blessed One,” Sebeth said, obediently.

Then the priest set his claws against her eyes as she sat perfectly still. “I have heard your confession, Sister Sebeth, and I absolve and forgive you in the name of Camran, in the name of Jurale, and in the name of Veld.”

I
t was the fifth day of the month of Leafturn, the day Exalt Benandi had fixed for her little dinner party to welcome back Penn to Benandi and inspect his sister and his nanny. According to her arrangements, Penn brought Amer up the Parson’s Passage for inspection in Exalt Benandi’s office, a little while before the time appointed for the dinner. The Exalt was in a good mood. She had heard from her friend Blest Telstie that her daughter Gelener would arrive in the afternoon of the seventh, in two days time. Accordingly she smiled at Penn when he went in first alone, leaving Amer to wait in the corridor, and while she reproached him for his extravagance in the matter of the carriage, she did so benignly. “A parson has a position in the world, but you are entirely dependent on your living, you have a comfortable establishment and a sufficiency, not enough for frivolity,” she finished.

“You are right, Exalt, I shall be more careful another time,” Penn said. He was rested now, and being at home, having had Felin’s undivided attention and seeing Selendra behaving very well for the whole span of a night and day, had conspired to make him much more relaxed.

“My condolences on the loss of your good father, too,” the Exalt said, a little aware that she had been tardy in saying so.

“He died in the arms of Camran,” Penn said, and the conventional words stung him a little as he spoke them, reminding him of his father’s confession.

“Then let me be introduced to your old nanny,” the Exalt said. “You need not stay, go and find the youngsters. They will doubtless be amusing themselves on the ledge or in the Little Talking Room.”

Penn beckoned Amer to come inside. Amer had asked Selendra to bind her wings back severely for this interview. She had not wanted to ask Felin lest her new mistress should decide not to loosen them later. Amer did not fear having her wings tied, but she preferred her accustomed measure of freedom and comfort. Nevertheless, she knew that for this interview her bindings must be as tight as they could be. She was not at all afraid of Felin, not when she had Penn and Selendra to defend her, but she knew Penn was afraid of the Exalt, who was the real mistress here. When Penn beckoned she bowed her head, drew in her breath, and went in.

What Exalt Benandi saw seemed in all ways satisfactory. Amer was clearly an elderly dragon, set in her ways, not at all what she would have chosen for Felin’s household. But they had inherited her, and must make the best of her. At least she was small, her wings were well bound, and she seemed properly subservient. She bowed so that her head touched the floor while Penn introduced her, and even when she looked up she kept her eyes lowered.