Once I could not have done this. I’d so feared exposure (and my father’s wrath) that I would never have dared to play in public. It was still nerve-racking, but I’d discovered that playing in public was also tremendously gratifying, emblematic of my new life, new freedom, new openness. Once I had feared for my life; now my greatest fear was flubbing a note, and it seemed right to celebrate that shift as often as I could.
Abdo danced and tumbled while I played, and we drew an appreciative crowd. The Ninysh are famous lovers of art, as the sculpture, fountains, and triumphal arches of Segosh will attest.
Of course, as every Goreddi knows, Ninysh public art was built on the back of Goredd: the Ninysh let us fight all those expensive, destructive dragon wars ourselves. It had rarely seemed worth Goreddi effort to create beautiful monuments or statuary, not when the dragons were going to raze it. Until Comonot’s Treaty and the forty-year peace, only music had been able to flourish in Goredd, the one art we could pursue while surviving in tunnels underground.
Abdo and I returned to Dame Okra’s near dusk in anticipation of Finch’s arrival. I’d expected to find our dinner in the kitchen, since Dame Okra had stayed late at Palasho Pesavolta the last two evenings. Tonight, though, I heard her braying in the formal dining room, over an unfamiliar basso counterpoint.
Dame Okra sat at one end of the gleaming table, taking coffee with a much younger man, who leaped to his feet upon our arrival. He was a scrawny fellow, shorter than me, with lank red hair to his shoulders, a long face, and a wispy chin beard. He wore Count Pesavolta’s orange and gold livery. I guessed he was past twenty, but not much.
“You deign to grace us with your presence at last, do you?” said Dame Okra, glaring at us. “Your armed escort is arranged. You leave tomorrow. Josquin here will prevent your getting too lost.” She flapped a hand at him obscurely; he understood it as a command to sit. “He’s my great-great-grand-cousin, or some nonsense.”
“Pleased to finally meet you both,” said Josquin, pulling out a chair for me. His voice was far deeper than his skinny build gave any hint of. “My cousin has told me—”
“Yes, shut up. My point is,” said Dame Okra, bristling, “I trust him. For years he and his mother were the only people who knew what I was, and they never told. His mother sews my dresses and helps me look properly human.” She adjusted her majestic—and false—bosom at this juncture, underscoring her point. Josquin politely found something deserving of attention in his coffee.
“He’s been riding as a herald since he was ten,” Dame Okra continued. “He knows every village and road.”
“Most of them,” said Josquin modestly. His blue eyes crinkled with amused affection for his old cousin, despite her surliness.
“The best roads,” snapped Dame Okra. “The ones worth knowing. He’ll translate. He’s already engaged his fellow heralds to ride ahead and spread word of a reward for information leading to the hermit and the muralist. That will save you time, I should think. And he knows you’ve got to get to Samsam in time for—”
Dame Okra suddenly froze and took on a dyspeptic look, her eyes unfocused.
Abdo, who’d claimed a chair and cup of coffee for himself, looked first at Okra and then toward the front of the house. I wish you could see this, Phina madamina. Dame Okra is having a premonition, her soul-light darting out like lightning. A big spiky finger from her mind to the front door. He pointed to illustrate.
She reaches out with her mind, too? I asked. She claims it’s her stomach.
Maybe she can’t tell them apart, said Abdo cheekily.
Dame Okra jerked grotesquely, recovering herself. “Saints in Heaven!” she cried. “Who’s this creature at the front door, then?” She leaped to her feet and rushed up the hall just as someone knocked.
I hurried after her. I had not yet had a chance to mention Finch. “Before you answer that—” I began, but it was too late.
“Augh!” she cried, her voice dripping disgust. “Seraphina, did you invite this person here, all plaguey and pestilent? No, sir, you may not track contagion into my house. Go around to the carriage yard and strip down.”
The doctor had removed his grimy apron and gloves and changed his robes; he still wore the ominous beaked mask, and his boots were indeed too muddy for her fine floors. I squeezed by Dame Okra, who puffed up indignantly.
“Leave your boots here,” I told the doctor. He hurriedly pried them off. I took his arm and said, “You are welcome. I failed to warn her you were coming.”
I led our new guest to the dining room, Dame Okra squawking behind us. Josquin stood again, with a cry of “Buonarrive, Dotoro Basimo!” and offered the older man his seat.
Finch shuffled over in his stocking feet, shoulders hunched anxiously, and sat. Josquin took the seat beside him.
“You know this ghoul?” demanded Dame Okra, switching the conversation back to Goreddi. She lingered behind in the doorway with her arms folded skeptically.
“Dr. Basimo keeps Count Pesavolta apprised of plague cases,” said Josquin brightly. “They’re trying to prevent another epidemic year. It’s a noble endeavor.”
The doctor perched on the very edge of a chair, his hands clasped between his knees, eyeing us through his glass lenses with trepidation.
“He’s one of us,” I said to Dame Okra. “We found him this morning.”
“Take your mask off, then. You’re among friends, by St. Prue,” Dame Okra called, coming no closer and sounding not the least bit friendly.
“You don’t have to, if you’re not comfortable,” I said, belaying her demand.
Dr. Basimo considered a moment, then pulled off his bag-like mask. I knew what we would see. I’d warned Dame Okra, but still she gasped. Josquin averted his eyes and took a quick sip of coffee.
Under the mask’s leather beak was a real one, thick and strong like a finch’s. Unlike a finch’s, it had serrated edges, reminiscent of a dragon’s teeth. He had no separate nose, just avian nostrils atop the beak. His bald, liver-spotted head and scrawny old-man’s neck made him look like a buzzard, but no buzzard ever gazed so intelligently through mournful eyes the color of a summer sky.
“Please call me Nedouard,” said the doctor, taking pains to speak clearly. It was hard for him; I could see his black tongue laboring to make up for the stiffness of his beak, and he couldn’t help the curious snapping sound where language required the lips he didn’t have. “The little fellow said you were all half-dragons. I had believed there were none but me.”
I sat down across from him and rolled up my left sleeve to show the silver dragon scales spiraling up my forearm. Nedouard hesitantly reached across and touched them. “I have a few of those as well,” he said softly. “You are fortunate to have escaped this.” He gestured toward his beak.
“It seems to manifest differently in everyone,” I said. Abdo obligingly stuck out his scaly tongue.
Nedouard nodded thoughtfully. “That doesn’t surprise me. The surprise is that humans and dragons can intermix at all. But what about—” He nodded at Josquin.
“Oh, not me,” said the herald. He’d gone pale, but he tried valiantly to smile.
Dame Okra said grudgingly, “I have a tail. And no, I won’t show you.”
Nedouard accepted a cup of coffee from Abdo with an almost inaudible “Thank you,” and then there was an awkward silence.
“Did you grow up in Segosh, Nedouard?” I asked gently.
“No, I was born in the village of Basimo,” he said, stirring his coffee, though he’d put nothing in it. “My mother took refuge there, at the Convent of St. Loola. She’d fled her home; she told the nuns my father was a dragon, but they didn’t believe it until they saw my face.”
“You were born with …?” I mimed the beak. “My scales didn’t come in until I was eleven. Abdo’s came in when he was … six?” I looked for confirmation; Abdo nodded.
“Oh, the scales came later,” he said. “The face, alas, was always as you see it. My mother died in childbirth
, but there was never any question of the sisters caring for me, however malformed—St. Loola is patroness to children and fools. They raised, educated, and loved me like a son. I wore a mask outside the convent. The villagers were fearful at first, but I was steady and peaceable. They came to accept me.
“Basimo was ravaged by plague when I was seventeen. The convent took in the sick, of course, and I learned to care for the victims, but …” He picked up a spoon and set it down again, drummed agitated fingers. “In the end, there were only five of us left. There is no village of Basimo, not anymore. Only the name I brought with me.”
“How do you manage here?” I asked, careful not to add, With a face like that.
He heard the omission, though, and looked up cannily. “I keep my mask on. Who would dare touch me to remove it?”
“Your patients don’t find the mask ominous during years without plague?”
“My patients are so grateful that they don’t mind what I look like.” He cleared his throat and added, “And there are no years without plague. Some years it doesn’t reach the rich, but it always lurks among the poor.”
Nedouard attempted to sip his coffee at last, but his beak was too ungainly for the tiny cup. Dame Okra made a scoffing noise, and Nedouard set his cup down, clearly mortified.
I glared at Dame Okra and said doggedly: “We’ve had many plague-free years in Goredd. There hasn’t been an epidemic in my lifetime.”
“Goredd is different,” said Nedouard, his grizzled eyebrows raised. “Quigutl eat your garbage, so you have fewer rats. It’s rats that bring plague. I’ve done experiments, written treatises, but I’m a self-taught doctor with this …” He gestured at his face. “Who’s going to listen?”
“We will listen. All Goredd will listen,” I said firmly. “I am on a mission to find all our kind. Goredd requires our assistance with the dragon civil war, but once that’s over, I hope we might form a community of half-dragons, supporting and valuing each other.”
Dame Okra rolled her eyes so hard I feared she’d give herself an aneurysm.
Nedouard turned his cup in his fingers. “People rely on me here,” he said.
“You might still help them,” I said. “If your work were taken seriously, you might find a way to prevent these outbreaks, or cure the disease altogether.”
His eyes shone. “It’s tempting, I have to admit. May I think about it?”
“Of course,” I said warmly. “How do we find you again?”
“I live … near where you found me,” he said, looking at the floor.
“You may move your things here, to Dame Okra’s house,” I said. “She has room, and you might be more comfortable.”
Dame Okra bristled, but held her tongue; she’d already agreed to house the Ninysh ityasaari before escorting them back to Goredd. I would hold her to that.
“Take your time and think it over,” I added. “Abdo and I have to seek out two more of our kind in Ninys. It could be six weeks before we’re back.”
Nedouard looked up again, interested. “How many of us are there altogether?”
“Sixteen,” I said, omitting Jannoula and Pandowdy.
His gaze sharpened, reminding me unexpectedly of Kiggs; there was a thinker behind that beak. “Interspecies fertility can’t be high,” he said. “There must be ten transgressing dragons for every one of us conceived. That suggests—”
“Are we quite finished?” cried Dame Okra, noisily piling coffee dishes onto the tray. “If I’m to see a lot of Dr. Basimo in the coming weeks, I shouldn’t like to tire of him all at once.”
Her unfriendliness embarrassed me, but Nedouard took the hint. He rose and shook hands all around; Abdo, who found this Southlander practice hilarious, pumped his arm with particular zeal. I saw the doctor out. “Dame Okra can be blunt,” I said as he put his boots on, “but she has a … a kind heart.” She didn’t, particularly, but I could think of nothing else reassuring to say.
Nedouard bowed cordially, hunched his shoulders, and disappeared into the falling night. Maybe I couldn’t see mind-fire, but I could see loneliness enshrouding him like a cloak. It was an old friend of mine. It weighed him down; he would surely join us.
When I returned to the dining room, I was surprised to see Abdo crawling under the table; Josquin was shifting the coffee set, moving napkins, and peering under plates. Dame Okra was exclaiming loudly to everyone: “Of course I didn’t see him do it! You never catch a professional in the act.”
“What’s happened?” I asked.
Dame Okra whirled on me, pink with rage. “Your bird-man,” she snarled, “has stolen three silver spoons.”
Josquin declined to stay for dinner. “I’m meeting Captain Moy, the leader of your escort, for one last briefing,” he said.
“Is he to know that we’re half-dragons?” I said, more sharply than I intended.
Josquin’s horsey face was well suited to looking serious. “He’s already been told. Was I not supposed to?”
My face felt hot. Would I never get used to people knowing? “It’s just … he won’t be frightened of us, will he?” Fear was less awful than hate, but easier to ask about.
“Ah,” said Josquin, growing thoughtful. “Our history differs from yours. Dragon incursions seldom made it this far south—thanks to Goredd. When Ninysh people learn what you are, I expect they’ll be more curious than fearful.”
“But the Saints themselves call half-dragons an abomination and a vile—”
“And we Ninysh are generally more relaxed about the Saints, too,” he said, smiling apologetically. “We’ve needed less of their help. It’s another lucky accident of history, a privilege afforded by peace.”
Peace was a blessing indeed; the years since Comonot’s Treaty had proved that.
Still, I wasn’t sure I believed him. I’d noticed his horror at Nedouard’s face; he’d tried valiantly to smile at my scales, but queasiness and unease had come first. If the Ninysh were so sanguine about differences, why had Dame Okra always gone to such lengths to conceal her tail?
Josquin seemed friendly enough, however. I would try to give our escort the benefit of the doubt.
Dame Okra was digging through the credenza as if Nedouard might magically have opened its doors without us noticing. Josquin smiled indulgently at her; he was fond of her, certainly, as baffling as that seemed. “Good evening, cousin,” he said. “Seraphina, Abdo—I’ll be here early. Be ready to leave.”
He saw himself out. Dame Okra slammed the credenza doors, crying, “Why did I agree to house these monsters? I take it all back. They can sleep in the stable.” She stomped off toward the kitchen, hissing and spitting. I sighed and rested my forehead against the cool, smooth table. Dame Okra made me tired.
“I only have so much patience,” I mumbled to Abdo, “and she uses all of it.”
He mused, I wonder how hard it is to manipulate soul-light. The old priest, Paulos Pende, said it could be done. I already reach out with a finger of fire. He jabbed the table with an index finger. Could I mold hers with it? Could I make her kind, make her forget?
I froze. Forget what? I asked, fearing to learn the answer.
Well, I could start with the spoons. Then she’d forget she hates Nedouard—
I sat up sharply. “Don’t suggest it. Don’t even think it.”
He recoiled from my sudden vehemence, his eyes widening. Oh, madamina, don’t be angry. I only wished … Nedouard is kind and doesn’t deserve her contempt. I only thought to help him.
My mouth had gone dry, but I managed to say, “Dame Okra must have sovereignty over her own thoughts, Abdo, however noxious we may find them.”
He studied my face. There’s a story you haven’t told me. Is it about that lady you banished from your mind?
Another time, I said wearily. He nodded and left me to my thoughts.
At bedtime, I still felt shaken by Abdo’s blithe suggestion and how much it upset me. However many years in the past Jannoula lay, her shadow seemed to lurk below t
he surface like some dread behemoth.
I went to my room, hoping my bedtime routines would settle me. I washed and oiled the wide band of scales around my waist and the narrower one winding around my left forearm. I flopped onto the four-poster bed, breathed myself calm, and descended into my garden of grotesques.
Ever since Abdo had described my garden as a gatehouse, its surfaces had taken on an odd flatness when I arrived, as if the trees and statuary were a painted backdrop for a play. His suggestion had made me too aware that none of this was real, like a sleeper realizing she’s dreaming. It’s hard to stay asleep once you know.
I stood still a moment with my eyes closed, quietly breathing life back into my construct. When I opened my eyes, everything had righted itself: the sun warmed my face again; the grass individuated into blades, dewy and ticklish between my toes; I smelled roses and rosemary on the wafting breeze.
I checked Jannoula’s cottage first, making sure the padlock on the door still held, as if I might have summoned her just by thinking about her. I said good night to all the denizens I passed, and when I reached his golden nest, I patted Finch—Nedouard—upon his bald head, pleased to have found him, whatever his flaws. I blew kisses toward Bluey, the painter, in her stream of swirling colors and Glimmerghost, the hermit, in her butterfly garden; I was coming for them next.
Settling the garden settled me somewhat. I returned to myself in Dame Okra’s green guest room. I had one last task to attend to before I could sleep. I pulled the silver necklace out of my shirt and felt for the sweetheart knot thnik.
I flipped the little switch. Upon Glisselda’s desk in the study, an ornamented box would be chirping like a cricket. Mine was not the only device connected to that receiver. Comonot had one, as did some of his generals, Count Pesavolta, the Regent of Samsam, and the knights training at Fort Oversea. A page sat at the desk all day, waiting to take calls.
“Castle Orison, identify yourself, if you please,” droned a bored young voice.