City of Dragons

Why had she been so reluctant?

“I didn’t think you did, really.” His voice was deep with pleasure as he fumbled at his clothing. “I knew Jerd was wrong when she said that you were afraid, that watching was as much as you’d ever want to do.”

Jerd? The name was like a bucket of cold water dashed against her. Thymara jerked back from Rapskal and then hitched away from him, pulling her shirt closed over her breasts. “Jerd?” she demanded of him, incensed. “Jerd! You discussed my doing this with Jerd? You took her advice on how best to accomplish what you wanted?” Fury washed through her, drowning desire. Jerd. She could just imagine her laughing, mocking, making lewd suggestions to Rapskal as to just how he could persuade her to mate with him. Jerd!

She shot to her feet, her arousal vanished. Her fingers flew as she refastened her clothing. She sought for furious words and couldn’t find any sharp enough to fling at him. Turning away from him, she stared at the wall feeling dizzied, almost ill. It had all changed too swiftly. She had been Amarinda and so infatuated with Tellator. Then she had entered that odd middle ground in which she had felt as if she possessed two lives and had absolutely no qualms about sharing herself with him. Now she didn’t even want to look at him.

I’ll have to hold on to him when I fly back on Heeby. That intrusive thought only intensified her anger. Right now, all she wanted was to walk away from him and never speak to him again. Jerd. He’d gossiped about her with Jerd! Believed that Jerd knew what she was talking about.

“Thymara! It wasn’t like that!” Rapskal stumbled to his feet, stuffing himself back inside his trousers and tying up the ragged drawstring. “I was just there, and Jerd was talking to some of the others. It wasn’t that I asked her advice. Some of us were just sitting around a fire a few nights ago, talking, and someone said something about Greft and missing him despite all he had done. And she agreed, and talked about him a bit, and then she told how sometimes you’d follow them and watch them when they were mating. And she was the one making mock and saying it was probably as much as you’d ever do. Saying you were pretending that you were saving your virginity or didn’t want to get pregnant, but actually you were just afraid of doing it.”

Thymara spun back to stare at him in horror. “She talked like that about me in front of everyone? In front of who? Who was she talking to? Who heard all this?”

“I don’t know. . some of us. We just get together in the evenings, to sit around a fire like we used to. Um, I was there, but Jerd wasn’t really talking to me. She was talking to Harrikin. Kase and Boxter were there, I think. And maybe Lecter. And I just, I just listened. That was all. I didn’t say anything.”

“So no one defended me? Everyone just sat there and let her talk about me like that?”

Rapskal cocked his head at her. “Then it’s not true that you used to watch them?”

“Yes. No! I watched them once. By accident. Sintara said they were hunting and that I should go join them. So I went to where they were and I saw what they were doing. That was all.” Well, not quite all, but as much as she would admit to. She’d been trapped in horrified fascination and she had neither left nor taken pains to let them know she was there. It was only fair, she told herself. If Jerd could wildly exaggerate what she had done, then she could cut it back in her own telling.

“Then it’s not because you’re afraid? I mean, that you’re still a virgin.”

She knew what he meant. “No. I’m not afraid. Not afraid of mating, but yes, I’m afraid of getting pregnant. Look what happened to Jerd. She had a miscarriage. But what if she’d carried the baby to term and then it needed all sorts of things we didn’t have? Or if she had the baby, and then she died and we all had to take care of it? No. Now is not the time for me to be taking that kind of a chance. Or for Jerd to be doing it with everyone. She’s just selfish, Rapskal. Look how she behaved when she was pregnant, expecting everyone to care for her dragon and to do her share of the chores and give her more than her share of the food. She liked everyone scrambling around to make her life easy.” Thymara pulled her cloak closer around her. She was cold now, she realized. How long had they been here in the city, standing still in the chill winter day? All the warmth she had recalled had fled. The tips of her ears and the tops of her cheeks burned with chill. “I want to go back now.” She spoke the words sullenly.

Rapskal’s response came slowly. “Not quite yet, we can’t. Heeby made a kill and ate a lot. She’s still sleeping.”

She folded her arms tightly around her. “I’m going inside somewhere. Out of the wind. Call me when we can leave.”

“Thymara, please. Wait. There’s something important you should know.”

She ignored him, walking away. She didn’t want to go into Amarinda’s house. She knew what she would see there. Oh, doubtless the rich wooden furniture and the embroidered tapestries and thick woolen carpets were gone. But the frescoed walls of her Bird Room and the deep marble tubs of her bath would still be there. And she didn’t want to see them and remember more things. Didn’t want to recall making love with Tellator in the deep warm waters of that bath, his muscled soldier’s body filling her arms.

The thought tugged at her, and she nearly turned around. She did want more of it, did want to experience all their amorous adventures together. She was tired of being cold, and now that she was all the way back in her own body, she was hungry, too. It would be so easy to go back into that house and become Amarinda again.

Being Thymara had never been all that much fun. And it did not seem as if it was going to become more enjoyable any time soon.

Abruptly, she felt icy cold all over, and she strangled as if she could not take a breath of air. The cold was so sharp it was like being stabbed by knives. It tumbled her, and she felt disoriented. She coughed and drew in a breath.

“Thymara?” There was alarm in Rapskal’s voice. “Are you all right?”

“Sintara!” She shrieked her dragon’s name as she jerked her head up straight and stared all around, as if to see what she was feeling so palpably. “She’s drowning! She’s fallen in the river and she’s drowning!”

Day the 25th of the Change Moon

Year the 7th of the Independent Alliance of Traders

To Kim, Keeper of the Birds, Cassarick

From Detozi, Keeper of the Birds, Trehaug

Kim, you are a fool. All cotes and lofts, public and private, are being inspected. No one has reported you or singled you out. As you yourself noted, most likely this plague of deadly lice began in the Wilds and is afflicting us all.

My first temptation was to turn your most recent note over to the Guild, as it contains not only an insult but a threat. You may thank Erek that I have restrained myself, for he pointed out that at this time the Guild must focus itself on saving our remaining birds. Bear in mind that I shall save your correspondence, and if any mishaps befall my cotes, lofts, or birds, I will not hesitate to present it to the Guild.

I suggest you look to the health of your birds, including this bluewing I’m sending back to you. I have cleaned him of all lice but have noted how poorly nourished he was in my log books. His cross beak is an indication of inbreeding; are you not minding your breeding records? I suggest you be sure that the peas and grain the Guild supplies for your birds is going into their mouths and not your own.

Chapter Nine

RETURN TO CASSARICK

Word of their return had preceded him. As the barge approached the city dock, he saw the waiting runner push his wet hair back from his eyes and give a quick nod to himself before darting off among the trees. Captain Leftrin had expected something of the sort. Tarman had encountered some little fishing boats upriver of Cassarick, and two had immediately shot downstream to the treetop city to spread the news: the liveship Tarman was returning from its expedition upriver. The big news would be that no dragons accompanied it.

Leftrin had not given any details of the expedition to the fishermen. To their shouted queries, he’d responded only that he’d tie up in Cassarick soon enough and he’d report everything to the Cassarick Traders’ Council then. Knowledge was power, and he had no intent of sharing that power until he’d used it to his utmost. Let them wait a