Tooth and Claw Read online

  Sher laughed, dutifully. “My mother was pestering me,” he said.

  Felin smiled, disbelieving, knowing how well Sher had learned to ignore and bamboozle his mother. “She must be very pleased to see you now,” she said.

  “She would have been happier if she’d had a month to prepare,” Sher said, ruefully. “I’ve come out here to escape from all the preparation being done at once now I am here, even if it is to result in the most comfortable gold in my bed and all my favorite dishes for dinner. No doubt you’ll be invited.”

  “Not today, for Penn is still away.”

  “Away? When it was Firstday but three days ago and will be Firstday again in another two? What was my mother thinking to allow that?”

  Bon’s death had loomed so large in Felin’s life she had forgotten there could be anyone who did not know it, and was taken aback for a moment by Sher’s teasing. “The Exalt did have to manage without Penn for one Firstday, though he arranged for Blessed Hape to come out to take the service in the church. But his father was dying, and has died, so she had to agree.”

  “Old Bon has died? I’m very sorry to hear that,” Sher said, his big dark eyes suddenly remorseful. “I don’t suppose you knew him well, but he was a wonderful old dragon, rock of the mountains. I visited Agornin several times when I was in school. What’s to become of the place? Penn can’t take it, of course, can his little brother?”

  “No, though old Bon hoped to live long enough that he could,” Felin explained. “Avan, the brother, isn’t up to it, so it’ll be managed by the Illustrious Daverak who is married to Penn’s hatch-mate Berend, and at last go to one of their children.”

  “I remember Berend,” Sher said, smiling. “I see her from time to time up in Irieth, where she acts the haughty Illust’ with me as if I’d never chased her down a mountain when she was learning to fly. All the same, that’s sad about Agornin. Penn should have said, I might have been able to help his brother. Too late now.”

  This offer of help when once it was too late to be of use seemed to Felin so characteristic of Sher that she could not answer it. “I must see your mother,” she said.

  18. THE EXALT

  If the inside of Benandi Place was not in quite the disorder Sher had represented, this was because his mother was a remarkable housekeeper. Felin, accompanied by Sher, made her way with accustomed ease through the maze of the upper caverns to find Exalt Benandi in her own office, near the kitchens.

  On most mornings, the Exalt would have been delighted to see Felin. Felin was a favorite of hers, insofar as the Exalt allowed herself favorites. The Exalt certainly took a fond interest in Felin and approved of her as much as she approved of anyone. She herself had helped to bring Felin up, and had arranged her marriage to Penn. Felin was no relation to the Benandis. Her father, a dragon of gentle birth but small means, had been a comrade-in-arms of the Exalt’s late husband, Exalted Marshal Benandi. At about the time of Felin’s hatching they had been together in a skirmish on the Yarge frontier, and both been wounded. Felin’s father had died of his wounds almost immediately. The Marshal had recovered to some extent, but retired home, leaving the border to be defended by younger dragons. In bringing the news of his friend’s demise to his grieving widow and dragonets (the news was all he could bring, for the body had already been consumed by his comrades, as remains the immemorial custom of armies) he discovered them living in some distress. The kindhearted old Marshal brought them home to Benandi and provided them with a small establishment of their own. Felin’s brother unfortunately fell sick and was consumed shortly afterwards, but the mother and daughter continued to live under Exalted Marshal Benandi’s protection until his death.

  Exalt Benandi had begun by resenting her husband’s kindness to these strangers, had little by little come to manage it for him, and had at last become as genuinely fond of Felin as she was of anyone beyond her only son, Sher. There had been times, especially in the years after Felin’s mother’s death, when the Exalt had treated Felin almost like a daughter. A little coolness had grown between them when Sher was at the Circle, for it appeared on his return visits to Benandi that Sher might be developing an unfortunate tenderness towards his companion. This coldness had been dispelled and replaced with a greater warmth than before when Exalt Benandi realized that her ward was doing the best she could to gently discourage her son. The Exalt had then made plans to find a suitable marriage for her ward—in what the Exalt considered to be her own station in life. Penn, Sher’s schoolfriend and companion at the Circle, was taking vows of priesthood and, to the Exalt, looked eminently suitable. Benandi was bound to support a parson of its own, and by good fortune the position had fallen vacant. The Exalt persuaded her son to invite Penn down for a long visit. Once he was there, she made sure to give him plenty of chance to fall in love with Felin. Unsurprisingly, for Penn was a serious-minded dragon and already of an age to settle down, Felin and Penn became attached. Once a betrothal was accomplished, Exalt Benandi offered him the living, permitting them to marry at once. She would have reacted with horror if anyone had suggested that she had acted so improperly as to dower Felin, but the effect was much the same nonetheless.

  This morning, however, the Exalt was busily engaged on organizing the establishment for her son’s comfort, and she did not want to be interrupted by anyone, least of all the son whose comfort she was considering and who had by this unexpected arrival considered hers so little. “Sher, I thought you were settled outside for a time? Good morning my dear,” she added to Felin.

  “Good morning, Exalt, I won’t disturb you long,” Felin said, kissing the Exalt’s proffered cheek. Exalt Benandi was the dark red of a damask rose, while Felin was the color of an evening sky that betokens fine weather. The sight of their cheeks together made Sher feel an unwonted pang. He remembered the brief time in which he, though hardly considered adult, had not treated Felin like a sister. For a moment he wished, or he almost wished, that he had a pink-scaled wife of his own to salute his mother like that and perhaps to greet him in the same way. For years, ever since he had left the Circle, he had been content to fritter away both his time and his gold. Now he was reaching an age where this contented him less than it had. He wanted to be building up gold in his sleeping chamber and not scattering it in idle amusements, making a home and guarding his demesne and enlarging it if he could. His mother had always warned him that one day he would want to settle down, yet he was amazed, as all dragons who are fortunate enough to live so long are amazed, that the impulse had come upon him at last.

  “Bless you, Felin, for I have a thousand things to do today,” the Exalt said, pushing away a letter she was writing.

  “I wanted to come up to tell you that Penn will be home tomorrow by the afternoon train.”

  “I will have them send the carriage,” said Exalt Benandi, making a note at once.

  “He wrote telling me to hire extra drafters to bring him from the station, for in addition to his sister he is bringing home one of the servants.”

  “She is bringing her own attendant?” the Exalt asked, rolling her eyes a little. “That sort of pretension is not at all what I would have expected of one of Bon Agornin’s daughters.”

  “Selendra is a good quiet maiden from all Penn says of her,” Felin said, pushing away her real thoughts on the subject of Amer and Selendra and speaking the part Penn had set her. “The servant is for all of us, for the household. It will be useful to have more help around the place now the dragonets are not hatchlings anymore. It will be so much more convenient having this servant that Penn knows and trusts than training one up, or hiring one who is a stranger to us all.”

  “There is never any cause to hire a strange servant at Benandi,” the Exalt said, jumping at this bait as Felin had known she would. “I would have provided you with a farmer’s daughter who only needs training in your ways, whose parents would have been glad to see her going to such a situation. I could have done that in an instant if you had only let me know you were th
inking about taking another servant.” The Exalt believed Felin really had been considering taking another servant, as she would never have believed Penn had he told her the same story.

  “I had hardly got beyond thinking of it when I found the difficulty settled in this way,” Felin said, spreading her hands deprecatingly.

  “Well, I hope she is a well-trained and obedient servant,” the Exalt said. “I shall examine her when I have the chance. I’m quite astonished that Blessed Agornin thought it worthwhile to hire drafters to bring them from the station. It’s no distance. Twelve miles, no more. The servant could have walked and his sister could have flown. The extravagance of it.”

  “No doubt old Penn can afford a drafter or two,” Sher said, smiling at Felin in a way that let her know that he recognized all her, or rather Penn’s, stratagems for dealing with his mother.

  “No doubt he can, but is it prudent?” the Exalt asked. “Is it something he would have done if he had considered? Gold saved today may be the salvation for the family tomorrow. If Felin’s poor father had saved his army pay his family would not have needed to have lived on our charity all those years.”

  “Surely the hire of a few drafters won’t mean Penn’s dragonets starving in the road,” Sher objected.

  “It is not one thing, but many things taken together,” his mother replied, icily, for this was a lesson she wished she had taught him better when he was a dragonet.

  “Penn is never extravagant in the general way,” Felin said, loyalty to her husband again overriding the voice of her private judgment. “I have ordered the drafters as he asked me.”

  “A parson should set an example,” the Exalt said.

  “I’m sure taking in an old servant is setting a good example,” Sher said.

  “Old? Not too old to work, I hope?” the Exalt pounced on the statement.

  Felin frowned at Sher, who gave her an apologetic smile. “I don’t know her precise age, but she can’t be a young dragon as she was Penn’s nanny. He says she is very experienced with dragonets,” Felin added, hoping this might help deflect the Exalt.

  “Sentimentality,” the Exalt sniffed. “I hope she doesn’t turn out a burden to you, Felin.”

  “I’m sure she’ll be a great help,” Felin said, though privately she agreed with the Exalt entirely.

  “You must all three come to dinner tomorrow,” the Exalt said. “Bring the servant up for me to meet beforehand, then we can send her back and Blessed Agornin can introduce me to the Respected Agornin in the dining room. We do want to make her feel at home among us. Poor maiden, it will be hard for her to go away from everything she knows. We must be kind and make her feel welcome.”

  “They will be arriving by the afternoon train,” Felin said. “That might be a little late for dinner tomorrow, as you won’t want to see them covered in dust from the railway. Might it be better to postpone it until the day after, and then I can bring Selendra up to meet you in the morning, which will be more comfortable than Penn presenting her at dinner?”

  Exalt Benandi put her head on its side and stared at the wall for a moment. “Very well,” she said, as if making a great concession. “But in that case you yourself must dine here this evening. I have seen nothing of you since Penn has been away, and tonight will be just family.”

  “Yes, do come, Blest Agornin, and save us from sitting down alone to dinner and doubtless murdering each other over the body of the swine,” Sher added.

  Felin choked, but attempted to contrive to look shocked rather than amused.

  “None of us need your crude jokes here, Sher,” the Exalt said. “They don’t amuse us in the least.”

  “I’ll leave you now and see you this evening, then,” Felin said. She had achieved what her husband wanted, which had been her intention, and she did not wish to trespass on her patroness’s time. Without the slightest idea of the effect it had on Sher, she kissed the Exalt’s cheek again in leaving.

  19. SHER’S PROSPECTS

  The Exalt Benandi was not much given to thinking of those ancient days, much beloved by poets and songsters, in which dragons lived in caves on hilltops distant from each other and knew nothing of civilization. If anyone ever did mention anything to her from before the Yarge Conquest, she would generally lift her wings in a tiny indication of disdain. Yet she had heard, as who has not, many splendid, romantic and no doubt inaccurate songs about them, and one thing from them kept coming into her mind whenever she considered her son. In those days, young dragons who had grown into their wings would go off and have adventures, as young dragons still wish to do, but in those days the adventures would include amassing gold, not dissipating it.

  In the eight or nine years since Sher had left the Circle, his constant extravagance had been a torment to her. Dragons customarily think in terms of hundreds of years, and when planning families and demesnes, often in thousands. It caused Exalt Benandi almost physical pain to see gold that had taken ten years to accumulate slip through her son’s claws in one night at the gaming table. Young dragons will seek adventure, whether that is to be found by discovering princesses to carry off and knights to battle, or by hunting dangerous game all day and playing dice half the night. There are some, like Bon Agornin, and like, had she but known it, his younger son Avan, who even now manage to accumulate a fortune by taking risks in their wild years. There are rather more like Sher who part with one, scarcely knowing where the accumulation of centuries has gone.

  Some parents attempt to harness the wildness of their sons by sending them into the army, which works well enough in time of war, but can be ruinous in peacetime in a fashionable regiment. Others organize tours of distant lands—but the romance and adventure that was once found in distant lands is today, alas, often the same rattle of the dicebox that can be found at home, but wielded by skillful Yargish fingers. Exalt Benandi had done neither but rather trusted to her son’s good sense, and was beginning to come to the end of her trust in it when he returned home so unexpectedly that late summer morning.

  She recognized his return as what it was. In the days of song, after fighting his battles and amassing his treasure, a strong young dragonlord would return to his demesne when he was ready to settle, generally bringing a bride with him. Even now this was often the pattern, it would be the prospect of some particular maiden that would tempt a dragon to settle down. Every mother of daughters dreamed that theirs would be the maiden to catch the eye of some eligible titled dragon who had reached this point in his life. Exalt Benandi gave thanks that she had never been the mother of daughters, and that she had reared just one son to disturb her peace. She had hoped that Sher’s eye would be caught by no particular maiden, which it never had except for that childish passage with Felin, years ago. She had dreamed through all his wild years that when the urge came to settle down she would be able to pick out a pleasant, congenial daughter-in-law, with wealth and rank appropriate to her son’s station.

  What she wanted to do was something that would have been quite unthinkable in prehistoric times, not because the dragons then were less amenable to persuasion by their elders but because a mother surviving that long after the birth of a son would then have been something almost unknown. For years she had been visiting neighboring demesnes to meet the maidens of the families, and even going up to Irieth in the season and looking over each year’s crop of daughters as they were presented. Sher had shown a supreme indifference to all this, and she had thus far let him go his way. Now, when he was showing indications of wanting to settle, was clearly the time to present him with the results of her work.

  Exalt Benandi’s favored maiden at the present moment was the Respected Gelener Telstie. This maiden was the niece of the present Eminent Telstie, so though she bore no high title of her own she came of excellent family. Her father was a parson, high in the hierarchy of the Church, very wealthy, and expected to be made a Holiness at the next opportunity. He had two sons to provide for in addition to Gelener, but as their Eminent uncle had no surviving c
hildren, one of them was expected to be adopted into the main branch of the family, leaving the other to go into the Church where their father had excellent influence. Gelener, the only daughter, was said to have a dowry of seventy thousand crowns. Besides that she was a prettily behaved maiden, and her mother, who was still alive, was one of Exalt Benandi’s particular friends. Blest Telstie, the mother, was anxious to have Gelener well married, for her daughter had been seeking marriage for two years now and was proving hard to please. Above all things Blest Telstie wished for an alliance with Exalt Benandi and a title for her daughter.

  Therefore the Exalt had that morning written to her old friend encouraging her to come and visit, bringing Gelener, and either stay herself or leave her daughter at Benandi for a long visit. It was this letter which Felin’s visit had interrupted. Exalt Benandi took it up again as soon as her friend and her son had left her. If she had known that Sher was planning to come home she would have arranged the visit far in advance, so that it might seem like a chance meeting. That might have made things seem easier. Sher did not like to feel herded. Still, she was sure he was feeling broody and wishing to settle down. At this stage it seemed likely any beautiful young maiden—and Gelener was beautiful, with a cold perfection of beauty that was much admired in Irieth—would do to entice him.

  Exalt Benandi finished the letter and sealed it. She had been much afraid that her son would bring home a stranger who would wish to turn her out of the house. At different times she had dreaded an August’s daughter who would despise her, and an entertainer from the clubs whom she must despise. Seeing either being installed as Exalt would have blighted her old age. Gelener Telstie, with her beauty and her seventy thousand crowns, was someone she could share her home with, and therefore exactly what she wanted. And should Gelener not suit Sher for some sentimental reason—young dragons, she knew, were often sentimental, look at Penn bringing his old nanny home—then she had another half a dozen appropriate maidens on her short list.