Tooth and Claw (24 page)

Daverak looked at him blankly, and the attorney sighed again.

“Dignified Jamaney is one of the best Pleaders in Irieth,” he explained. “He can make eighty-foot Marshal Augusts weep like dragonets and proud Exalts admit their faults. He’s expensive, but with him on our side, we have a much better chance of overcoming.”

“But surely we don’t need to resort to such tactics,” Daverak said, repelled. “We have a good case. The will speaks of treasure, not of his body. They are being totally unreasonable.”

“It depends entirely on how the jury see it,” Mustan said, sitting back and resting both claws on his stomach. “Not the judges, in this case, the jury. The question is old Bon’s intention. How you see
matters isn’t important if they can show that Bon saw them the way his sons seem to, do you see? Bon was a Dignified, and he held land, and he was your father-in-law, but he seems to have been a vulgar old fellow for all that. If it can be shown that he meant treasure in the vulgar sense, including his body, the judgment could go against you.”

“That’s absurd,” Daverak said, half-decided to take this business back to the old established firm.

“Absurd or not, that’s what we have to avoid. Splitting the family unity will help. If your wife and her sister who is your ward—” he picked up his notes again.

“Haner,” Daverak said. “The Respected Haner Agornin. She’ll be sensible about it.”

“Yes. Good. If they, and especially if the other sister, the one who is at Benandi, speak for your side, then Avan will have very little case. But if all the children agree as to Bon’s intention, then I don’t know. There is a strong feeling among the common dragons that the bodies of their parents are the one bit of dragon-flesh they will reliably come to consume, that this is what makes them different from the servant class, who never get any at all and never grow more than seven foot long in their lives. Now in a trial in Daverak this wouldn’t be a problem, the jurors would all be your own farmers. But the writ was issued here in Irieth, so it definitely will. The jury are selected from the free population of the city. Considering the free population of Irieth, that means you may get a clerk, but to get someone Respectable would be a wonder. The majority of the seven will be common workers. They will be against you on principle.”

Daverak sat back, almost knocking his shoulders on the wall. He hated the cramped office where he had to sit curled around, he hated the law for being so inconsiderate of the feelings of the Illustrious, he hated Mustan for knowing more about the business than he did,
and he hated Avan for making the whole thing necessary. “Engage Dignified Jamaney then,” he said. “Do whatever you think best. You have a free claw. Spend what you need. But Avan must be utterly defeated, he must learn that you cannot treat the Illustrious Daverak this way.”

Mustan knew that blows to pride were as stinging as any other blows, so he merely made another note. “I’ll have to talk to the Blessed Penn Agornin,” he said. “I’ll ask him to come and see me. I’ll talk to Hathor too, Avan’s attorney, and see if I can gather anything about what he really wants.”

“Do that,” Daverak said, feeling almost faint from the close air in the room.

“Will you be in town for another few days? I’d like to talk to you again when I have some more information.”

“No, I have to go back to Daverak,” Daverak said, knowing he couldn’t stand any more of the city. “My wife is in a delicate condition.”

“I’ll write to you then,” Mustan said, standing and opening the door. “I’ll let you know as soon as there’s a date for the hearing. There will probably be two hearings, a few weeks apart.”

“And I want you to bring a case against Avan,” Daverak said.

“What for?” Mustan asked, taking off his glasses.

“Harassment. Distressing my wife when she is expectant. Willfully annoying me.”

“Better to win this case first, and then go forward with a case like that,” Mustan said. “Besides, if he loses this case he’ll lose all he has, without need for a countersuit. We’ll be able to claim our costs, and they’re likely to be high. He’ll likely lose his position in his office as well—what is it, the Land Office? The Planning Office? They don’t like scandal in those sorts of places. In which case he’ll be out on the streets and not worth pursuing in court.”

“Good,” said Daverak. “We’ll leave that for now. But get on with the other, and write to tell me how it’s going. I’ll come up to Irieth again if I must.”

“You’ll probably not need to come up before the case,” Mustan said, nodding to Daverak as he squeezed out of the door. When his patron had gone, Mustan sat down with his papers before him and shook his head over them. “No telling how this one will go,” he murmured to himself.

Out in the street, Daverak could breathe more freely. Mustan’s office was in the fashionable Toris quarter, not far from Avan’s workplace, had he known it. He strolled down the Promenade towards his club. He would tell them he was leaving and set off for home tonight. He wondered again about going back to Talerin and Fidrak. He wasn’t sure that Mustan sympathized with him. He gave Mustan his business precisely because they had always been in agreement about the way to do things. Now, when it was most important, Mustan didn’t seem to feel that Avan had done anything so terrible in taking him to law. Still, he had put the matter in Mustan’s claws, and taking it out might be difficult, if Mustan wanted to make difficulties. Certainly it would take time, and it was certain that he would have to explain the whole wretched business again. No, he would let Mustan get on with it. He would have a reviving dinner alone in his club—none of his friends would be in Irieth now—spend the night there comfortably and then when morning came get out of the city as fast as his wings would bear him.

In Daverak’s absence, Berend had continued to entertain, if anything with more enthusiasm than when her lord was by her. Haner’s
warnings that she should conserve her energy for her clutch were overruled or even scoffed at. This was Berend’s second clutch, she felt she knew all about it by now. She had produced two eggs, which sat in splendor in the gold-lined hatchery, wrapped in fleeces. She was, however, still in a delicate condition in expectation of a third. Since the loss of Lamerak she had stopped boasting of her ability to produce clutches of three, and indeed confessed one night to Haner that she would have been as glad to stop at two this time.

One evening when Haner slipped into the Speaking Room before dinner, she found Berend deep in conversation with the Dignified Londaver. His parents were also present, as were a few others of their neighbors. Many of those Berend liked best were away, making up hunting parties in remote locations. As Haner made herself attentive to the elderly Exalt Londaver, she could not help noticing that Berend and young Londaver kept turning their heads to look at her.

After dinner, and after sponging, Dignified Londaver suggested to Haner that as it was such a fine night they should go out and look at the stars. The elder members of the party smiled at the thought, and, Haner suspected, at the predictable nature of it. She herself could not for the moment tell what she felt. She had once been excited by Londaver’s attention, but then when once it had been withdrawn she could not feel the same excitement again. Nevertheless she followed him out to the topmost ledge and opened her eyes to the winter sky, which was magnificent. The stars hung against the blackness in their multicolored profusion, like a spilt box of gems. Haner picked out the familiar constellations. The Great Beef was rising, with the Little Veal at her tail. The Winter Princess held out her hand in blessing.

“Aren’t they glorious?” Londaver asked.

“Oh yes,” Haner agreed.

“And think of our ancestors seeing them just the same and finding all those shapes in them. I’ve thought of that since you told me about that, that time, you remember, when you were staying here before?” Londaver spoke as if he had not seen her since her visit to Daverak when they had danced and looked at the stars, as if the polite but formal intercourse they had shared in the last months had never happened. She did not feel at all romantic, she felt angry.

“So what brings you out under them tonight, Dignified?” she asked, as coldly as she could.

“The beauty of your eyes to outshine them,” he said, awkwardly.

Haner wanted to bite him. “Don’t you think this is ridiculous, when you’ve been ignoring me all this time?” she asked.

“Ignoring you?” He was confused. “I wasn’t. I always liked you.”

“I’d respect you a great deal more if you spoke the truth,” Haner said. “Now I believe I shall return to the Speaking Room, there’s a chill in the air.”

“Only on your side,” Londaver said. “Honestly, I’ve always liked you. But you know I’m a poor dragon, living on what my parents allow me, and they’re not really rich. I couldn’t afford to marry where there wasn’t a little dowry to ease things along. After your father died I kept my distance because I hadn’t made any promises and I didn’t want to make any I couldn’t keep. I tried to put you out of my mind, but I always cared for you. Now Berend tells me things have changed again. She says Daverak will treat you as a daughter and dig out some extra gold to pad out what your father left you, to make it the same as hers was. That’s
uncommonly good of Daverak, and it means I’m free to think of you again.”

He was a Dignified, and he would be an Illustrious. Selendra had given him her approval. If she married him she would be away from Daverak and the terrible practices condoned there. Yet her heart did not beat faster, her breath did not catch in her throat, and though he took a step closer to her on the shelf she did not feel the tide of pink rush through her scales the way it did to maidens in stories.

“How do you treat your servants?” she asked abruptly.

Londaver stopped where he was, frowning. “My servants?” he asked. “How do you mean? I keep their wings strapped down and make sure they know when I like dinner, that sort of thing.”

“And what happens when they grow old?”

“Oh, usually we unbind their wings and let them live on farms nearby,” Londaver said, relief at having a question he understood plain in his voice. “Mother usually sees to it. She sends them beef and preserves now and again.”

“That’s what we did at Agornin,” Haner said. “Here the servants are all afraid. It’s making me think the whole institution is wrong. No dragon should be unable to use their wings.”

“Parsons,” Londaver countered quickly.

“That’s free choice,” Haner said. “That’s different. It just seems wrong.”

“Are you a free-thinker?” Londaver asked, taken aback. “A radical?”

“I don’t know, what do they believe?” Haner asked.

“Well, that servants should be freed, that religion should be kept to Firstday, and the Old Religion tolerated, that everyone should be equal before the law, that kind of thing.”

“I think I may be,” Haner said, consideringly, surprised at herself.

“You’d better keep that to yourself,” Londaver advised.

“Are you still making me an offer?” Haner asked.

“Yes, certainly, why would that change anything?” Londaver asked, sounding honestly puzzled. “You’re not going to unbind all the servants at Londaver or anything are you?”

“Not immediately,” Haner said. She wasn’t sure that this indulgence of her beliefs as if they were an eccentricity was what she wanted, but it was much better than what she might have had. She shuddered to imagine Daverak’s response to her declaration of free-thinking, or even her father’s.

“Then how would you like to come over here and embrace me?” Londaver asked, uncertainly.

Haner hesitated. If she did, she would blush, and then she would be committed. “Don’t you think you ought to check with Illustrious Daverak about the dowry first?” she asked. “Before you’re entirely committed?”

“You’re so practical, Haner,” Londaver said. “So clever and so practical, and so pretty in that delicate way. I really do like you the best of all the maidens I ever met. Do you think Daverak would try to cheat us? I suppose I would be in a better position to negotiate with him if you’re not looking all bridal. Very well, let’s just keep it a verbal agreement until I speak to Daverak. But I shall consider that we are to be married, whatever color your scales are, and I dearly look forward to seeing them pink, and then redder and redder.”

He was no dragon out of legend, bold, wild, and firm of resolve. But he was considerate and not cruel and he could give her a home where Selendra could also live. “I’ll marry you as soon as you
like, once you have the dowry all arranged,” she said, thinking that she must write to Selendra at once.

Haner and Londaver returned to find the establishment in uproar. “The Exalt Daverak has been taken unwell,” Exalt Londaver said gently to Haner. “We’ll be going now, I only waited for you to come in. You’ll want to be with your sister, Haner dear.” She smiled at Haner in a way that showed she guessed what had passed under the stars. Haner was almost too concerned to notice.

“How serious is it?” she asked the older dragon. “Should I send for a doctor?”

“One has already been sent for,” Exalt Londaver said gently. “My husband has gone to fetch one for her. I’d go to your sister at once, that’s where you can do most good.”

Without hesitating to bid good-bye even to her newly affianced husband, Haner hurried down to Berend’s sleeping cave, only to find it empty. She stopped a hurrying servant and asked where Berend was.

“Hatching Room, ’Spec,” the servant said, and hurried on, head bowed.

Haner went to the Hatching Room with a heavy heart.

She heard her before she saw her. Berend was groaning horribly, catching her breath and groaning again. Haner hurried in. Berend was sitting curled around her two safely delivered eggs. She was more green than red, and some of her scales were falling. Next to the nacreous swirling iridescence of the eggs she looked like spoiled meat. She looked up as Haner came in, and Haner saw that her eyes were whirling wildly.