flashing its scarlet insets. She closed her eyes, trusting him to hold her in his orbit, and wondered what could ever surpass this glorious moment. Then she smiled, knowing the answer.
Telling Delo about it.
'THEY ARE BEAUTIFUL TOGETHER,' ETTA MURMURED.
Wintrow risked a sidelong glance at her. She watched the dancers with a strange hunger in her eyes. He supposed she was imagining herself in Kennit's arms, skimming the floor as gracefully as Reyn and Malta. But not as abandonedly, he decided. Even pirates had more decorum than his wayward sister did. 'It is good they're getting married soon,' he observed stiffly.
'Oh. Do you think that will put a stop to their dancing?' Etta asked him sarcastically.
He gave her a humbled smile. Every now and then, a spark of the old Etta showed through, like coals gleaming in a banked fire. 'Probably not,' he conceded. 'Malta was born dancing, I believe.' Watching the ecstasy on her face as Reyn spun her in the dance, he added, 'I suspect that a dozen children from now, she will still display her feelings as plainly.'
'What a shame,' Etta consoled him dryly. She was silent as the couple spun again, then asked, 'Do all in Bingtown disdain dancing as you do?'
'I do not disdain dancing,' he answered with surprise. 'I was learning the basic steps, and accounted graceful enough, before I was sent off to be a priest.' He watched Reyn and Malta a few moments. 'What they are doing is not that impressive. It is just that they are able to do it both swiftly and gracefully. And that they are a well-matched couple.' He frowned a moment, then admitted, 'And that incredible dress she's wearing.'
'Do you think you could dance like that?'
'With practice, perhaps.' A sudden thought came to him. He coupled it to the discovery of how stupid he still could be. He leaned toward her. 'Etta. Would you care to dance?'
He held his open hand out toward her. She looked at it for a moment, then looked aside. 'I do not know how,' she replied stiffly.
'I could teach you.'
'I would not be good at it. I would only humiliate myself, and my partner.'
He leaned back in his chair and spoke softly, forcing her to listen carefully. 'When you fear to fail, you fear something that has not happened yet. Dancing is far less difficult than reading, especially for a woman who can run the rigging and never miss a step.' He waited.
'I… not now. Not in so public a place.' She built up to admitting it, as admitting any desire was difficult for her. 'But someday, I would like to learn to dance.'
He smiled at her. 'When you are ready, I will be honored to partner you.'
She spoke very softly as she added, 'And I will have a dress to surpass that one.'
THE STARS GLITTERED COLD IN THE BLACK SKY OVERHEAD. BY CONTRAST, THE yellow lights of Jamaillia were warm and close. Their reflections snaked like serpent backs over the rippling water of the harbor. The sounds of merriment and music from the distant festivities wafted thin in the cold spring night. Across the dock from her, Ophelia shifted in the darkness. She was an old-fashioned liveship, a blowsy old cog. A moment later, she rattled a large dice box at Vivacia. 'Do you game?' she asked invitingly.
Vivacia found herself smiling at the matronly figurehead. She had not expected to find the company of another liveship so convivial, especially one who professed to have lost all dragon memories. Ophelia was not only good company but a veritable fount of Bingtown gossip.
Even more important to Vivacia were her detailed accounts of all she had seen and heard in Trehaug. The cocooning banks were far upriver, beyond the reach of a ship of her draft, but Ophelia was an adept meddler and an avid listener. She had contrived to know not only every fact but every rumor about the serpents' progress. The news she shared with Vivacia had been bad as well as good, but knowing the fate of her serpents was a kind of peace in itself. She served her kind best by remaining in Jamaillia for now, but the suspense had been difficult to endure. Ophelia had understood her thirst for information about the serpents. Since she had arrived in Jamaillia City, her detailed accounts had been a great comfort to Vivacia. Still, she shook her head at Ophelia's dice box. 'Althea seemed to believe that you cheated when she played with you,' she observed lightly.
'Oh, well, that's Althea. Nice girl, but a bit suspicious. Not the best judgment in the world, either. After all, she chose that renegade Trell when she could have had my Grag.'
Vivacia laughed softly. 'I don't think your Grag ever had much of a chance. I rather suspect 'that renegade Trell' was chosen for her by Ephron Vestrit a number of years ago.' At Ophelia's affronted expression, she added kindly, 'But Grag doesn't seem to have missed her for long.'
Ophelia nodded in satisfaction. 'Humans have to be pragmatic about these things. They don't live that many years, you know. Now his Ekke, she's a fine girl, knows how to seize life and make something of it. Reminds me of my first captain. 'Don't expect me to stay ashore and have babies for you,' she told him, right here on my foredeck. 'My children are going to be born on this ship,' she said to him. And you know what Grag said? 'Yes, dear.' Meek as milk. I think he knows he'd better get to it if he's going to have a family. Humans only have so much time, you know.'
'That's why we have to cram so much living into those years.' This observation came from Jek. Her perfume wafted on the spring night. Despite the chill, she was barefoot, a long skirt swirling about her ankles. She came boldly to perch on Vivacia's railing. 'Evening, ladies,' she greeted them. She took a deep breath, sighed with contentment and sat swinging her feet.
'You've been up at the dancing!' Ophelia enthused. 'Tell us about it. Did you see the Satrap's palace?'
'From the outside. It was all lit up like a bawdy-house lantern, golden lamplight and music spilling from every window and door. The streets were full of fine carriages, and there was a great line of folk parading in, dressed fine as kings, every one of them. Some were content to stand about and gawk at their betters, but not I. The courtyard was fine with me. The music was gay, the men were handsome and the dancing lively. They were cooking whole pigs on spits, and keg after keg of beer did they broach. It was as good a feasting as I've ever seen in any town. Still and all, I'm ready to sail tomorrow. Jamaillia's a dirty place, for all its fine houses. I'll be glad to get out on the water again, and gladder still to see Divvytown. I knew it was my home port that first time I saw it.'
'The pirate town? Sa save us all. Does someone wait there for you, dearie?' Ophelia asked.
Jek laughed aloud. 'They all wait for me. They just don't know it yet.'
Ophelia's bawdy chuckle echoed hers. Then she noticed Vivacia's silence. 'Why so thoughtful, my dear? Do you miss your Wintrow? He'll be back soon enough.'
Vivacia stirred from her reverie. 'No. Not Wintrow. As you say, he will be back soon enough. Sometimes it is a pleasure to have no thoughts but my own. I was looking at the sky and recalling. The higher you fly, the more stars there are. There are stars up there that I will never see again. They didn't matter to me when the heavens still belonged to me, but now I feel it as a loss.'
'You're young. You're going to find a lot of things like that in your life,' the old liveship replied complacently. 'No sense dwelling on them.'
'My life,' Vivacia mused. 'My life as a liveship.' She turned to regard Ophelia with a sigh. 'I almost envy you. You recall nothing, so you miss nothing.'
'I recall a lot, my dear. Just because my memories have sails instead of wings, don't you discount them.' She sniffed. 'And my life is nothing for you to disdain, I might add. Nor your own. You could take a lesson from my Grag. Don't go mooning after the stars, when the wide sea is all around you. It's a sky of its own, you know.'
'And with just as many stars,' Jek observed. She hopped back onto the deck and stretched until her muscles crackled. 'Good night, ladies. I'm for my bunk. The day starts early for sailors.'
'And for liveships. Sweet dreams, my dear,' Ophelia wished her. As Jek padded softly away, the liveship shook her head. 'Mark my words. She'll regret it if she doesn't settle down soon.'
'Somehow I doubt it,' Vivacia replied, smiling. She looked back at the lights of the town. In the Satrap's palace, Wintrow and Etta prepared humans to accept the return of her kind. She knew a sudden surge of pride in them. Astonishingly, she felt the same for herself. She smiled at Ophelia. 'Jek is too busy living. She won't waste
