Seraphina(42)

“As if it had been bitten off, yes,” said Princess Glisselda, nodding vigorously.

“Does the council suspect a connection between this dragon and his death?”

“Grandmamma doesn’t like the notion, but it seems unavoidable, does it not?” she said, bouncing on her heels. “We’re breaking for dinner now, but we’ll take the rest of the evening to figure out what to do next.”

I was fingering my wrist again. I clamped my right hand under my armpit. Stop that, hand. You’re banished.

“But I haven’t told you the best part,” said Glisselda, putting a hand to her chest as if she were about to make a speech. “I, myself, addressed the council and told them dragons view us as very interesting cockroaches, and that maybe some of them intended the peace as a ruse! Maybe they secretly plan to burn the cockroaches’ house down!”

I felt my jaw drop. Maybe this was why her governess didn’t tell her anything: give her an inch and she took it all the way to the moon. “H-how did that go over?”

“Everyone was astonished. Lady Corongi stammered something stupid, about the dragons being defeated and demoralized, but that only made her look a dunce. I believe we made the rest of them think!”


“We?” St. Masha’s stone. Everyone would think I was giving the princess mad ideas. I’d made the cockroach analogy, yes, but the house of burning bugs—to say nothing of the peace being a ruse!—was her own extrapolation.

“Well, I didn’t credit you, if that’s what you’re hoping,” she sniffed.

“No, no, that’s fine,” I said hastily. “You never need to credit me!”

Princess Glisselda looked suddenly stern. “I wouldn’t say never. You’re smart. That’s useful. There are people who would appreciate that quality. In fact,” she said, leaning in, “there are people who do, and you do yourself no favors alienating them.”

I stared at her. She meant Kiggs, there was no mistaking it. I gave full courtesy and she smiled again; her elfin face wasn’t made for sternness. She skipped off, leaving me to my thoughts and my regrets.





I mulled over her news on the way to supper. A rogue dragon in the countryside was unprecedented. Whose responsibility was it? I knew the treaty well, but that specific question wasn’t answered anywhere. On the Goreddi side, we would doubtless try to make the dragons deal with it—and yet how could they, without sending dragons in their natural shape to apprehend the rogue? That was unacceptable. But then what?

We relied heavily upon dragon cooperation in the enforcement of the treaty. If even a few of them refused to accept it anymore, what recourse had we but the help of other dragons? Wouldn’t that effectively invite them to battle each other in our skies?

My steps slowed. There wasn’t just the one rogue dragon. My own grandfather, banished General Imlann, had attended the funeral and sent Orma that coin. Could there be illegal, unregistered dragons all around, eschewing the bell and blending into crowds?

Or was there just the one after all? Could the knights have seen Imlann?

Could my own grandfather have killed Prince Rufus?

The idea made my stomach knot; I almost turned away from dinner, but I took a deep breath and willed myself forward. Dining hall gossip was a chance to learn more about the rogue, if more was known.

I crossed the long dining room to the musicians’ table and squeezed onto a bench. The lads were already deep in conversation; they barely noticed I was there. “Twenty years underground—are the old codgers even sane?” said Guntard around a mouthful of blancmange. “They probably saw a heron against the sun and took it for a dragon!”

“They want to stop Comonot’s coming by stirring up trouble, like the Sons,” said a drummer, picking raisins out of his olio. “Can’t blame ’em. Does it just about make the hairs on your neck stand up, dragons walking among us like they was people?”

Everyone turned in unsubtle unison to peer at the saars’ table, where the lowest-ranking members of the dragon embassy took dinner together. There were eight of them tonight, sitting like they had rods up their spines, hardly speaking. Servants shunned that corner; one saarantras returned the serving bowls to the kitchen if they needed a refill. They ate bread and root vegetables and drank only barley water, like abstemious monks or certain austere Samsamese.

A scrawny sackbutist leaned in close. “How do we know they all wear the bell? One could sit among us, at this very table, and we’d have nary an inkling!”

My musicians eyeballed each other suspiciously. I conscientiously followed suit, but curiosity had seized me. I asked, “What happened to the knights in the end? Were they released back into the wild?”

“Banished men, and likely troublemakers?” scoffed Guntard. “They’re locked in the eastern basement, the proper donjon being full of wine casks for some significant state visit coming up.”

“Sweet St. Siucre, which one might that be?” someone asked with a laugh.

“The one where your mother beds a saar and lays an egg. Omelette for all!”

I laughed mechanically along with everyone else.

The conversation turned to the concert schedule, and suddenly all inquiries were directed at me. I’d had an idea, however, and was too preoccupied with it to focus on their questions. I referred everyone to the schedule posted on the rehearsal room door, handed my trencher to the little dogs under the table, and rose to take my leave.