In the Labyrinth of Drakes (26 page)

Ordinarily I would have objected at being shuffled out of the way, but not this time. I took the blanket with me, and curled up tight beneath my covers until sleep finally came.

*   *   *

Despite my disturbed night, I woke early, out of habit. And it was a good thing I did, because no matter what had happened in the night, the business of the House of Dragons must go on.

The labourers were feeding the drakes. We tried to approximate their schedule in the wild, supplying them with meat every three days; it just so happened that this was one of their days. I tried not to look at the bloody flesh as the men dropped it in the scales, focusing all my attention on the needle and the notes I made. It was important to know how much each beast ate—even if I would have been happier not recording that Ascelin had no appetite today.

I saw when Suhail arrived, accompanied by a number of other Akhian men, but made no effort to join them. I had no wish to observe the prisoner's interrogation, and trusted that I would learn the results in due course. When the bare minimum of my duties was done, I went and sat on one of the walls, letting the hot summer breeze ruffle my scarf and the sun sink into my bones.

Andrew found me there. “Are you trying to roast yourself?”

“It is the one place in Dar al-Tannaneen I will not be interrupted,” I said. “Or when I am—as now—I can see it coming, and prepare.”

He settled next to me, back against the stone of the parapet. “What's on your mind?”

It was a peculiar relief not to have him ask whether I was all right. We both knew I was not, and needn't pretend. “What Pensyth said last night. About what I did in Keonga.”

“The battle, you mean.”

I was sitting with my knees drawn up to my chest: not a very ladylike pose. I wrapped the fingers of one hand tight around the other and looked away. “After you cut that man's throat outside the Banu Safr camp, it bothered me a great deal. Seeing you kill someone. The more I think about it, though … no one died when I used the sea-serpent to bring down the caeliger. But in Vystrana I provoked the rock-wyrms into attacking the boyar and his men. In Mouleen we put fangfish into the water to slow the Labane, and last night I let Ascelin out of his cage to savage that man.”

Andrew—ordinarily the most voluble of my brothers—held his peace while I marshaled the words and got them out. “I have not killed anyone directly. But time and time again, I use dragons to do the work for me.”

“They aren't weapons,” Andrew said. “They're animals. Doing what they do. You just … make use of that.”

“Is it any different? It might even be worse. A sword or a gun is made for killing, and does not care if its owner uses it thus. These are living creatures. They have other purposes besides murder—and they are not mine to use.”

Andrew picked at his fingernails. “You keep putting yourself in dangerous situations, Isabella. You have to defend yourself
somehow.
” He hesitated, chewing on his lower lip. “Do you … want me to teach you how to shoot a gun?”

I had not expected the offer. I had not expected anything at all; I was simply wallowing in the realization of my own deeds, without much thought for what I would do going forward. Andrew spoke with the air of a man who knew he would be banished from family holidays forevermore if word got out of what he'd done … but he was willing.

Was I?

I tried to envision it. Myself, with a rifle over my shoulder or a pistol at my hip. I did frequently end up in dangerous situations—and when I did, I was dependent upon those around me for defense. If not dragons, then other people: Andrew, cutting that man's throat. Dagmira, smashing a jar over Gaetano Rossi's head. The Moulish, threatening Velloin and the Yembe hunting party. Even the “pure” of Mouleen did not shy from the need for hunting or defending their land with force; they simply refrained from the act themselves, for reasons of religion. Was it any more moral to have others fight on your behalf?

I did not think it was—and yet. Had I been carrying a weapon during my various misadventures, who knew what might have gone differently? My enemies might well have treated me more harshly, because of the threat I posed.
I
might have treated
them
more harshly. There is a proverb that says,
To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail
. If I had a gun, it would shape my thinking; the violent response would always be there. A possibility—sometimes a tempting one. It might result in more death; and one of those deaths might be my own.

Armed or not, I might die in the field. But I would rather die failing to think my way out of a situation than failing to fight my way out.

“I should like to be able to
defend
myself,” I said, choosing my verb carefully. “Not to shoot or to kill—because I do not want to become the sort of person for whom that is a standard option when trouble arises. But I know there are ways to make myself a little safer, and learning them might be valuable.”

(Not long after my return from Akhia, I made an offhand mention of this conversation during a public event in Falchester—omitting that it was my brother who made the offer. Owing to the degree of celebrity I enjoyed by then, my words were taken up by a great many people: some of them treating it as a rallying cry, others as a sign of how far our society has fallen. Of the latter I will say nothing, but of the former I will note that there are individuals who have undertaken to teach the simple basics of defense to ladies. I deplore the need for such things … but so long as the need exists, I cannot fault anyone for protecting herself. Especially not when I chose to do the same.)

The fruits of that conversation did not come immediately. I had the House of Dragons to take care of, and there was no privacy in which Andrew could teach me anything, unless we turned my bedroom into a training ground. But even having addressed the issue lifted a good deal of the weight from my heart; and so I was able to resume my work with a much clearer mind.

 

SEVENTEEN

A history of sabotage—Our chances of success—The future of Dar al-Tannaneen—Six for the desert—Wisdom and the lack thereof

Tom's news upon his return was mixed.

“We can stay,” he said, putting that first because he knew nothing else he said would leave a mark on my brain until that part had been laid to rest. “Lord Ferdigan was
very
keen to send you home, on the grounds that it's all well and good for me to risk my neck, but not so acceptable for you.”

“As if I have not risked my neck without his permission on many occasions,” I said with a sniff. “That is excellent news—but you have the look of a man who has not said everything yet.”

“Indeed.” Tom dropped wearily into his office chair; his had been a strenuous journey, with no time wasted. The chair creaked in protest at this treatment. “The bad news is that we won't have any additional funding, and may even lose some.”

Lose
some? I dreaded to think where cuts might be made. Feed? Labour? We had our premises from the caliph; I had no idea whether we were paying rent to him or the local emir for the privilege, but surely relocating us would be even more expensive. “So much for moving the females and males a sufficient distance apart, I suppose. Why is he tightening our belts?”

Tom rubbed his eyes. “I feel like the sand has scoured my corneas right off. From Lord Ferdigan's perspective, this isn't a research programme anymore; it's a diversionary tactic. And we don't need a lot of money to be a diversion. In some ways, we're more effective if we're strapped for cash; then the Yelangese will think we don't have a prayer of making real progress.”

We
wouldn't
have a prayer of it, at this rate. I went to my own chair and settled into it, much more gently than Tom had done. “Has anyone told you what the Yelangese did while you were away?”

Judging by the way Tom's hand froze in midair, they had not. It fell to me to tell him of the arson, and the man captured and questioned afterward. “It went further than we realized,” I said. “The sabotage, that is. Do you recall Prima dying? He said someone crept in and gave her poisoned meat in the night, for quite a while. We thought her appetite was failing solely due to ill health; but the ill health was not accidental, and she was getting additional meals besides.”

The tension in Tom's shoulders said that it was a very good thing none of the saboteurs were in front of him right now. “Then they moved on to poisoning us.”

“They would have started sooner, but we went into the desert. Their leader judged that it would be better to let blame fall on the Banu Safr, rather than continue to risk revealing themselves at Dar al-Tannaneen.” I sighed and sat back. The wicker bottom of my chair sagged beneath me. “What will come of this, I do not know, except that it will not be good.”

Tom's voice was quiet and grim. “We thought the first act of war would be a fleet of caeligers moving into position. Instead it might be a firebomb thrown through a window.”

The first act of war had been the Battle of Keonga … or the caeliger Suhail and I stole from Rahuahane … or the Marquess of Canlan sending men to break into Frederick Kemble's laboratory … or myself taking Gaetano Rossi's notebook from the cellar beneath Khirzoff's lodge. How far back did the chain stretch? At what point could one circle an incident and say,
This is where it began
?

For nations, it was the point at which they issued formal declarations of war. And it was indeed possible that the spark which lit that fuse would be the one that set the House of Dragons on fire.

We had come here to further the war effort, but our importance in that regard had been superceded by breakthroughs elsewhere. Our attempt to delay conflict by continuing our work had possibly done the opposite. It was enough to make me question everything we were doing here. “Tom … do you think we
can
succeed? At breeding dragons, I mean.”

He left off rubbing his eyes and regarded me silently. His skin was as tanned as I think it could be, but still more red than tan; the whites of his eyes were slightly bloodshot. He looked tired. I did not imagine I looked a good deal better. Our lives here were not so hard as all that—they had been harder at many points in Mouleen—but there was also no end in sight. For everything we had learned, we still had no answer to the basic question we had come here to address.

“Eventually, yes,” Tom said slowly. “One way or another, we'll figure it out. Or someone will. But it will take a long time.”

Years, in all likelihood. Science of this sort is a matter of testing theories and methods, seeing the results, refining them and testing again. Some of that process could happen within a single breeding season, but not all. “I've been thinking about the mating flights, and the role of temperature in egg incubation. What if it plays a role in conception as well? We know the flights
must
heat the dragons tremendously—all that exertion in the middle of the day. There are species of pine whose cones do not open and deposit their seeds until a forest fire comes. What if drakes are the same? How are we to breed them without mating flights? Are we to build giant ovens for them to lounge in?” I stopped, shaking my head to keep myself from rambling on more. “We have too many questions. I could be here the rest of my life and never answer them all.”

“That's scholarship. There's always more to learn.” Tom sighed and leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees and linking his hands together. “But yes, I see your point. Are you saying you want to quit, after all?”

“
No.
” My vehemence startled even me. A moment ago I had been considering that, without thinking about it directly; but the moment he asked, my indecision vanished. “I just wonder—when we will say we have done enough.”

For that question, I had no answer. Tom did not have one, either, and we sat in silence for a long time before picking up our work once more.

*   *   *

The mood at Dar al-Tannaneen had changed. Whatever pretense we maintained, the forward momentum of the programme had faltered, and everyone felt it.

It is difficult to describe the effect this had on me. I was still working with dragons on a daily basis, in a context where I was—albeit slowly, with grudging will—being accepted as a respectable intellectual; these things did not lose their savour. And yet, I think on some subconscious level I had begun to question the worthiness of what I was accomplishing there. Despite what I had told myself about mountains and the climbing thereof, the value of views from partway up the slope even if one did not reach the summit … I had come here to climb the entire mountain. It was disheartening to consider that I might have to surrender that goal.

We simply had not realized how tall the peak was, and how steep its slopes. Andrew had said it, when I first arrived in Akhia: we expected that our superior scientific knowledge should vanquish this problem, even though it was sufficiently intractable as to have stumped the world for millennia. Breeding large predators in captivity is not easy, even when they are not dragons. How many years was I prepared to spend on this challenge?

I found myself staring at a piece of paper one night, contemplating what I might write to Jake. His summer holidays would begin soon; he wanted to join me in Akhia for the duration. If he came, would it be his one chance to see this country before I departed? Or would it be an acknowledgment that I lived here now, and would for the foreseeable future?

The decision might not be mine to make. Eventually the news of synthesis would become public, and at that point, the Crown would have no reason to maintain us here at all.

I had not yet dressed for bed. Although it was late, and as usual I would need to rise early the next morning, I left my chair and went for a walk around the compound.