Seraphina(68)

“The bladders would be for pyria,” I said.

“But how would you ignite it?” puffed a breathless voice behind us, which turned out to be Squire Foughfaugh.

“It would be self-igniting, Maurizio. Look,” said Kiggs, pointing to a matchlock mechanism I hadn’t understood.

“Clever,” said Maurizio. “The squires could have operated that—anyone could have. Put the knights out of a job, almost.”


Sir James came to see what the fuss was about. “Humbug. Machines limit mobility. Hunting dragons is not a question of brute force, or we’d be knocking them out of the sky with trebuchets. It’s an art; it takes finesse.”

Maurizio shrugged. “Having one of these on our side couldn’t have hurt.”

Sir James sniffed disdainfully. “We might have used it as bait. Nothing lures a dragon like an odd contraption.”

The snow was blowing harder now; it was past time to go. We made our farewells. Maurizio insisted on helping me onto my horse. I cringed, irrationally fearing he’d discern my scales. “It’s such a relief after all these years to learn that you recovered from your fright,” he said in a low voice, giving my hand a squeeze, “and that you grew up so pretty!”

“Were you worried?” I asked, touched.

“Yes. What were you, eleven? Twelve? At that age we’re all gawky, and the outcome is always in doubt.” He winked, smacked my horse’s hindquarters, and waved until we were out of sight.

Kiggs led the way back to the sheep track, and I urged my horse to keep up.

“You appear not to have gloves,” said Kiggs as I pulled up beside him.

“I’ll be all right. My sleeves almost cover my whole hand, see?”

He said nothing, but pulled off his own gloves and handed them to me with a look that told me I didn’t dare refuse. They were prewarmed; I hadn’t realized how frigid my fingers were until I put them on.

“All right, I’m an idiot,” said Kiggs after we’d ridden a few miles in silence. “I had fully intended to scoff at your fear of riding after dark, but if it keeps snowing like this, we’re not going to be able to make out the road.”

I had been thinking the opposite: the road now stood out, two parallel white lines where snow filled in the wagon tracks. It was nearly dark, however. This was the longest night of the year, and the heavy cloud cover was working toward making it even longer. “There was an inn at Rightturn,” I said. “The other villages were too small.”

“Spoken like someone unaccustomed to traveling with a prince!” he laughed. “We can commandeer any manor house along the way. The question will be, which one? Not Remy, unless you want to spend the evening with Lady Corongi and her cousin the reclusive duchess. If we can make it all the way to Pondmere Park, that would minimize our travel time in the morning. I have duties to attend to tomorrow.”

I nodded as if I did too. I’m sure I did, but I could not remember a single one.

“I’ve been meaning to tell you all day,” said Kiggs, “that I had some additional thoughts on being a bastard, if you’d like to hear them.”

I could not stop myself laughing. “You … really? All right then.”

He reined his horse back even with mine. He had not put up his cloak hood, and there was snow in his hair. “You’ll find me eccentric, perhaps, but I haven’t been able to stop thinking about that. No one ever asks.

“My father was a Samsamese admiral. My mother, Princess Laurel, was the youngest daughter of Queen Lavonda and was, according to legend, a bit headstrong and spoiled. They ran off when she was fifteen years old; it was as dreadful a scandal in Samsam as here. He was demoted to freighter captain. I was born on dry land but was often at sea as a baby. They didn’t take me on their final voyage: the day before they were to set sail from the Ninysh port of Asado they met Dame Okra Carmine, who persuaded them to let her take me to Goredd, to meet my grandmother.”

I had considered her short-range prognostication talent a bit silly; I was wrong.

He stared up at the clouds. “They perished in a terrible storm. I was five years old, lucky to be alive, but feeling quite at sea myself. I didn’t even speak Goreddi. My grandmother didn’t take to me right away; Aunt Dionne hated me instantly.”

“Her own sister’s child?” I cried.

He shrugged; his cloak flapped in the wind. “My very existence was an embarrassment to everyone. What were they to do with this unexpected child, his low-class manners—even for a Samsamese—and his mortifying ethnic surname?”

“Kiggs is a Samsamese name?”

He smiled ruefully. “It’s not even Kiggs; it’s Kiggenstane. ‘Cutting-stone.’ Somebody up the family tree was a quarryman, apparently. But everything worked out. They got used to me. I showed them I was good for a thing or two. Uncle Rufus, who spent years at the court of Samsam, helped smooth my way.”

“You looked so sad, praying for him this morning,” I blurted out.

His eyes glittered in the twilight; his breath made mist in the cold. “He’s left a tremendous hole in the world, yes. Only my mother’s death compares. But you see, this is what I’ve been aiming toward, the thing I keep imagining myself telling you because I feel you’ll understand it.”

I held my breath. The silent snow came down all around us.