I am very determined to make sure he gives me permission, though. Because from what I’ve seen of the text so far, this isn’t just a history; it’s a sacred story. And it simply isn’t right for a human like me to be the first one to read it.
later
I’ve spent days imagining ways that conversation might go, and none of them looked anything like what actually happened.
It started off like I expected, because of course he asked how the translation was progressing. I am shameless: I pretended my scattered approach was actually for his sake. “I know you must be very keen to learn what it says,” I told him, “and so I have been translating as I go along, rather than doing all the copying and transcription first. Just yesterday I completed the first tablet—though it’s hardly as polished as the finished draft will be.”
Lord Gleinleigh barely looked up from his plate. He only said, “Excellent; I am pleased to hear it.”
That man! I said, “Do you not want to know what it says?”
This is the thing that frustrates me the most about him. He is all in a rush to make certain these tablets are translated, but I swear he doesn’t care a toss what they’re about. He only wants to be famous as the man who found them. I simply cannot understand it. They’re lumps of fired clay, for pity’s sake! They have no value at all in their own right; I could go make my own if I wanted, like I did when I was nine and Mama and I got stranded on that island in Trayarupti Bay. Their only worth is in what they can tell us. And yet that is the part he cares about the least.
So my tone may have been a bit on the sharp side. Enough so that Lord Gleinleigh put his knife and fork down and said, “Yes, of course. I will read it tonight, if you like. But give me the general sense of it now.”
“It is a creation story,” I said eagerly. (I may have played up my enthusiasm a bit beyond what it naturally was, in the hopes of getting him to be enthusiastic, too—but it was mostly genuine.) “But not the one the modern Draconeans tell! Of course that’s only to be expected; after all, thousands of years have gone by, not to mention a great deal of change in their society. You wouldn’t expect people living in villages in the frozen mountains to tell the same stories as the masters of a worldwide empire. But there are some intriguing similarities. Are you familiar with how the modern Draconeans say they came into being?”
He returned to his beef, but gestured for me to go on. Warming to my subject, I said, “According to their story, the sun’s heat made wind, the wind became four Draconean sisters, and the scales they shed became mountains. And I suppose the mountains created gravity or some such—they don’t say it that way, but the weight of the mountains dragged the sisters down to earth, which sounds like gravity to me.
“The sisters were heartbroken because they could no longer fly, only glide a little. They wept, and that created the waters of the world, all the rivers and lakes and so forth. Then they bathed themselves, and that created new creatures. Because male Draconeans are associated with writing and language, they say the water the sisters used to rinse their mouths made the first brother. Then the waters they used to wash their fronts made the first humans—the front of a Draconean being more human-like—and the waters they used to wash their backs and their wings made the first dragons.”
“And this is not the story in my tablets.”
I bridled a bit to hear him call them “my tablets.” Never mind my own proprietary feelings toward them; they are a treasure for the world, not just one earl. But I made myself smile. “No, the tablet story puts the creation in a different order. But it speaks of a trinity—three gods, though it doesn’t use the word ‘god’; I imagine the ancients didn’t need that spelled out—who echo the modern story a little bit, because it sounds like they’re the sun, the wind, and the earth. The order of creation is different, though. They make the world, then dragons, then humans, and finally Draconeans, instead of the Draconeans coming first.” I did not tell him that the tablet makes both dragons and humans out to be failed prototypes on the way to creating the best people. That might get up his nose, right when I wanted him to be in a good mood. And it isn’t as if our own Scripture is all that flattering about some things.
“Fascinating,” Lord Gleinleigh said. “Do send it along to my study, and as I said, I will read it tonight.”
Up to this point, everything was going just as I’d anticipated. My plan then was to put on a look of artful disappointment and tell him how sorry I was that I couldn’t tell him more yet, that Cora was very helpful but not well-versed in the finer points of Draconean orthography and poetics, and the work would go so much faster if I had someone to puzzle it out with . . .
Then Lord Gleinleigh said, “You know, Miss Camherst, it has occurred to me that in my rush to secrecy, I have overlooked something very important.”
I tell you, diary, I nearly choked on my beef. After I got it to go down the right pipe, I said, “Oh?” with very little art at all.
He said, “We’ve agreed that it would be best to have the translation published before the Draconean congress in Falchester next year. And it seems to me that it would give a great insult to the Draconeans if they were not at all involved in the process of translating this epic. Your family is renowned for your friendships among them; is there a scholar you would recommend to me? Not to replace you, of course—your work so far has been quite satisfactory. But you said before that it was sometimes necessary to consult with an outside scholar, so perhaps someone you could work in partnership with.”
Words utterly failed me. I have spent so many nights trying to plan the best way to ask this of him, but not one of those scenarios featured Lord Gleinleigh suggesting this to me. I stammered for a moment, thrown utterly off my stride, until he frowned and said, “Unless you are not amenable to the idea.”
“I’m more than amenable,” I said vehemently. “I know exactly whom to ask. Have you heard of a Draconean named Kudshayn?”
He had to have heard of Kudshayn. Hadamists know Kudshayn, because he is the very public emblem of everything they loathe. When Lord Gleinleigh nodded, I said, “He and I have been good friends since childhood. His knowledge of the ancient tongue is even more extensive than mine, and he has a great deal of prestige among his own people—not to mention among humans. Even working by post, I am sure his contributions will be invaluable.”
Lord Gleinleigh paused in the middle of lifting his wine. “By post?”
“I know you don’t want me sending letters,” I hurried to add. “We can use all kinds of subterfuges to hide it, if you feel that’s necessary—though honestly, the odds of anyone reading my letters are really quite low. But with sailing time factored in, it would take months to get him here. I can’t afford to wait that long, not if the translation is to be published before the congress. And continuing to work while he is on his way here would really defeat the purpose. Caeliger post is the only practical way.” (Not a cheap one, of course—but I was prepared to pay out of my own pocket. Though I suppose that amounts to Gleinleigh’s pocket in the end, since he’s paying me.)
“Hmmm.” Lord Gleinleigh sipped his neglected wine, then put it down thoughtfully. I hadn’t somehow made him reconsider, had I?