“What do you do when you’re not bringing the dragons a drink or sicking up?”
He took the jibe well, tilting his head and scrunching up his face in a way Ileth found appealing, like a dog hearing a new whistle-call for the first time. “I’m apprenticed in the kitchens. The Serpentine—in the yarns it’s all taking off into stormy skies and dueling and burning and triple-sealed message pouches, but it’s not. Not in real life day-to-day. It’s shoveling food at one end of the dragons and still more shoveling at the other end and keeping the middle trimmed and polished. Speaking of which, I should get back to it. I enjoyed talking to you. Ileth. Have I got it right?”
She nodded and started to speak, but her stutter and her cough joined forces and she had to discreetly bring up phlegm. She held up her hand so he wouldn’t leave without her being able to say good-bye.
“Same for me. Busy—out here. Maybe they’ll give me a job as an apprentice doorstop.”
He joined his two fists, knuckles at her, as though holding a line. Or perhaps reins. “That’s the angle, Ileth.”
She’d never seen the gesture, but a smile spread across both halves of his mismatched face.
He turned for the door, giving her a chance to discreetly spit out the mucus she’d been keeping in her mouth. Then she coughed again, leaning on her thighs as she did so. The spasm exhausted her.
* * *
—
On the sixth day after her arrival the main gate opened.
On the positive side, she was rarely hungry now and her cough had faded into a few morning hacks to clear out her lungs. She’d never developed a fever or other signs of serious illness. But the absence of hunger made her wonder if she was starving to death, and though she’d lost that discomfort there were others. She hardly slept, and the lack of sleep meant she could hardly think—though that may have been a blessing, as her thoughts as the days passed were a tumult of anxieties that fought and yowled like a barrel full of cats rolled down a hill.
She felt colder than someone camping outside should be, even in a mountain summer. She kept dreaming that she was back in the Lodge at night, and she whiled away the days trying to catch crayfish and snails.
So when the doorkeeper who’d refused her entry told her they were letting the rejects go and that there were drummers out front looking for workers, even girls, she forced herself to rise and act. She found the energy to even run briefly in her scramble to the corner of the tower, practically swinging on the hand ropes as she rounded the corner.
The selection had been made and announced, it seemed, and the rejects from the Academy filed out. A few had black eyes and bruises; all had nicks and cuts visible on their hands, knees, and elbows. What had passed within the walls? It almost made her glad she was starving next to the red door.
Some of the dismissed looked miserable, some relieved, some blankly unreadable. They all shuffled tiredly across the ditch before the walls, clutching musical instruments, cold-weather gear, tied-up stacks of books, or bundles and travel cases. A gathering of family members, servants, and not a few priests awaited them.
“The Auxiliaries need men and women!” a drummer, standing up in a wheelbarrow, bellowed as a broad-shouldered, older woman next to him rang a handbell for attention. “If you can push me a hundred paces in the road in this uphill”—he struck the metal tub with his booted heel hard so it made a thump like a drum—“you’ll be enrolled as a first-rate and get meat-ration twice a day. No other qualifications required.”
“Chartered Captain Thornstand Heem Trallsoap seeks brave hearts and nimble feet fit for sea duty taking seal and sharkskin. Shares on profit, three seated mealtimes, and supplied ordinary and shore clothes!” a man in a nautical coat balanced on the saddle of his horse called through a speaking-trumpet. “Seventy silver diadems to each boy on his last cruise, one hundred fifty to ordinary seamen.”
Though the sum sounded fantastic, Ileth had heard enough sailor stories to know that such a “cruise” could potentially last years—not so fabulous a sum if it took four years off you.
“Servants needed!” an aged but hale man said, passing out placards. “Yearly or household! Earn your keep, all feast days recognized, and gifts of coin, tools, and clothing!”
“You want to meet dragoneers, girl?” An artfully turned-out woman in a rich overdress with a servant standing behind fell into step with her. “I can arrange it. Consort work. Not whoring. None of my girls ever get called whores. Fatten you up a bit and put you in a nice dress and you’d be called a beauty.”
She ignored the drummers and shrugged off the insult of being paid to rut about with rich men, walking past them to stand in line for a drink at the cistern. It was crowded this morning, with people filling up their bottles and watering their horses before departing. The noise grew as some of the families celebrated.
“You’re young, you’ll be fine,” a woman next to Ileth who was probably one of the waiting mothers said as they stood in line, gripping Ileth’s forearm in a reassuring squeeze. She had only a little girl whose head came up to Ileth’s waist with her, so her other child must have been accepted. “How’d you get that cut on your chin, one of those beasts? I’ve heard of men being crushed to death when one of them rolls over in its sleep while they’re working on the scale. I say you’re better off. Most of those getting in are fools; they work them half to death for a couple years, only to never ride a dragon before they shove them out the gate and no skills fit for any trade except shoveling up after horses. It’s ten to one against my boy getting on with one and becoming a dragoneer. Probably hundred or more to one for the girls. As I was saying, you’re better off.”
Ileth shrugged.
Another woman, sunburned and tired-looking in a dress with a nice collar that suggested some wealth, added: “I know he’s going to neglect his math, after good money spent on tutors and practice books. Raking up droppings when he should be figuring percentages!” Ileth marked her as an indoor type who kept a shop or sewed clothes for those even better off than her. “If you can figure percentages, well, doors will open for you, won’t they? Better places than mucking about with dragons. But he will have his way. How are you on percentages, girl?”
Ileth just smiled vacantly in reply.
The woman seemed about to reprimand her for not replying to an adult’s question, but a place opened at the cistern before she could add anything else to the conversation and Ileth escaped into the press.
By the time she’d drunk and washed, the throng sorted itself out as locals brought their carts and baskets in to deliver orders and exhibit their wares to the new novices. Family members of those remaining within the Serpentine rushed through the gate to congratulate their offspring, passing purses of money and rolls of writing paper. Ileth saw that the marketplace just inside the gate was roped off. Parents and siblings had to reach across a line to embrace the chosen and give their farewells.