Daughter of Dragons

Chapter 4-3

The stranger’s warbling snared Lathwi’s attention for a moment, but when she could make no sense of the words he was singing, she returned to her own dreamy musings. Shoq would like this not-water, she decided, taking another swallow. It turned one’s thoughts into shiny beads of quicksilver: fun to watch, impossible to hold. Then again, Shoq’s thoughts were probably like that all the time. She smiled at that, but her amusement abruptly gave way to a bout of longing. She closed her eyes to savour the boundless images of her tanglemate.

“That was beautiful,” Pieter crooned, when Jamus brought his song to a close. “Might I persuade you to sing another?”

“Maybe later,” Jamus replied, and then glanced at Lathwi in the hope that she would coax him for an encore, too. When he saw that her eyes were closed, a scowl of mock indignation ridged his handsome brow. “Damn, I didn’t even manage to put a smile on her face. Does she always look that fierce?”

“No,” Pieter said, inordinately pleased that he was not the only one whom Lathwi managed to confound. “Sometimes she looks downright terrifying.” Then, because he didn’t want to talk about her all night, he changed the subject. “This gish is excellent. Shall we have a smoke to go with it?”

“Splendid suggestion,” Jamus said. Then, as the trapper fumbled for his pipe and w**d, he asked, “Do you think she’s ever been with a man?”

“I couldn’t say,” Pieter replied. “I’ve only known her for a few days. And in that short span of time, I’ve learned not to speculate about her past doings.”

What they didn’t know was that while Lathwi’s eyes were closed, she was very much awake and listening to the ongoing conversation. This aspect of man-talk intrigued her. When dragons spoke to each other, only those addressed could hear.

“I’ll bet she’d be a wild cat in bed,” Jamus went on.

“I don’t know about that,” Pieter countered. “My guess is that she’s more like a spider than a cat.”

“Why’s that?”

“After spiders mate, the female eats the male.”

Lathwi allowed herself a private smile. It pleased her to know that Pieter held her in such high regard.

The two men lapsed into silence then. A moment later, their breathing patterns shifted, becoming deep and slow. At first, Lathwi thought that they were falling asleep, but then she caught a whiff of a strange-smelling smoke. It was acrid and sweet, cloying as wood smoke was not. She opened one eye to a slit. The other sprang wide open of its own accord.

Pieter was breathing smoke! It flowed from his nostrils like twin streamers of fog, then danced in circles away from his mouth.

“How you do that?” she blurted.

Startled by her sudden outburst, the two men bolted out of their boneless poses. An instant later, Pieter wagged a reproving finger at her and said, “You shouldn’t sneak up on people like that.”

She did not bother to point out that she had been in the same spot all night long. She was too intent on his newfound talent. “How you breath smoke?”

“This is a pipe,” he said, holding up a long clay tube that bore a small, steaming bowl at one end. “It’s got a bit of burning tobacco in it. When I put my mouth to the tip and inhale, smoke flows down the stem and into my chest. When I exhale, the smoke goes out my mouth.” He demonstrated then. “See? There’s nothing to it.”

“I try now,” she told him.

“Only if you promise to give the pipe back when you’re done,” Pieter countered.

Although dragons did not like to make promises, Lathwi’s desire to make smoke was compelling. “I give pipe back.”

“Say you’ll return it tonight,” he pressed, catching the deceptive flicker in her tone.

She grinned, congratulating him for his perceptiveness. If he had not made the effort to be more specific, she would have been able to keep the pipe indefinitely without breaking her word. Now she was obliged to accept whatever conditions he cared to impose.

“I return tonight,” she said. “Give now. I try.”

He handed her the pipe. She held it a moment, intrigued by the sensation of cool clay warmed from within, then raised the tip to her mouth. The hot, spicy odour of burning tobacco tweaked her nose. She paused, waiting for a sneeze that lost its momentum, then took a deep breath.

A forest of nettles clawed at her throat. A cold hand gripped her intestines. She coughed the smoke back up, then gagged as the dry, rancid taste of tobacco coated her mouth. For a moment, she feared she would vomit.

“What for you breath that smoke?” she demanded then.

“People smoke for pleasure,” Jamus told her, his voice rippling with barely suppressed amusement. “Didn’t you enjoy the feeling of sweet, cool smoke in your lungs?”

“No.” Her head was whirling like it did after one of Shoq’s dives. Her stomach was squirming, too. How could anyone mistake such misery for pleasure? “Make me sick.”

Pieter chuckled. “I’ll admit, it’s an acquired taste.”

“What that?”

“Something that grows more pleasurable over time,” Jamus explained. “The more you do it, the more you like it.”

“Why do more than once if no like first time? That not smart.”

He dismissed that accusation with a shrug. “If people gave up on everything they didn’t like the first time, we’d all still be hanging on to our mothers’ teats.”

That was not a true answer to her question, but she did not wish to pursue the matter further. She thrust the pipe back into Pieter’s hand. “You keep. Not want.”

“Whatever you say,” he said, and then pulled a twig from the fire to relight the tobacco. She sniffed—not even Fire liked the awful stuff! Then the smell of it sent her stomach into another tailspin. She got up and headed downwind of the stench. Humans! she thought, as she curled up under a tree. She could study them forever and still not understand them.

G

Morning thundered down from the trees, an excruciating cacophony of bird song and rustling leaves. Lathwi peeled her eyelids open only to squeeze them shut again as rays of sharp-edged sunlight lanced into her impossibly tender brain. An instant later, her head began to throb to the beat of her heart. She groaned.

“Get up, Lathwi,” Pieter boomed in a voice as great as a dragon-sire’s. “It’s time to hit the road.”

“Shut up,” she hissed.

“Good morning, Lathwi,” Jamus said, as she struggled to her feet. “How are you feeling today?” The false sweetness in his voice suggested that he already knew the answer.

“Head hurt,” she said. “Got stomach full of nettles.”

His chuckle was not entirely sympathetic. “That’s what happens when you drink too much gish.”

“That not-water do this to me?” she demanded, glaring at him despite the ache in her eyeballs. When he nodded, she hissed. “Why you not say last night?”

“Would you have believed me?”

She continued to glare at him, but inwardly she had to concede his point. Up until this very moment, she had viewed him as superfluous, remarkable only as a convenient source of meat and exotic drink. She would not have believed him if he had told her that not-water would turn to poison in her veins overnight. She would not have believed him if he’d said that water was wet. So. She had learned one lesson here, perhaps more. Next time, she would be more circumspect.

She stared at him until he went away, and then stumbled into the woods to relieve herself. On her way back to camp, Pieter intercepted her.

“Jamus wants to ride with us,” he told her. “I wouldn’t mind having him along because there’s safety in numbers. And besides, I like the man. You have the final say, though.”

Safety did not usually interest her. Neither did Jamus. But since Pieter seemed to value the noisy man’s company, she was willing to endure it—for now. “He want come, I not say no.”

“I’ll tell him that,” he said, and then hurried off in Jamus’ direction.

The two men conferred for a moment, then started to pack up their belongings. Meanwhile, she went over to the bay and began to saddle him. The stallion was in a feisty mood this morning and made her work harder than she wanted to, but the exertion purged some of the gish from her brain. By the time Pieter and Jamus were ready to go, she was feeling more like a dragon than dragon dung.

They returned to the road, then continued on their way at a leisurely pace. As the morning wore on, it turned muggy and hot—a fact which the two men discussed at great length. Lathwi scorned such foolish talk. The weather was not going to change simply because they did not like it. Yet this was typical of them, she reminded herself. They did not seem to care about the conversation’s contents, only the conversation itself. Jamus was worse than Pieter was in that regard—his vocal chords were better developed than his eyes, his ears or his nose. Indeed, he had probably talked yesterday’s deer to death. She rumbled then, amused by the notion.

“What’s so funny?” Pieter asked, in the mood to share a joke.

She did not feel like repeating the string of thoughts that had led to her tickling, so she rolled her shoulders and said nothing.

Her silence annoyed Jamus. For some reason, he was sure that she had been laughing at him. He glimpsed at her out of the corner of his eye, searching for minute facial clues that would confirm his suspicions, but she was as unreadable as a stone. Worse, she seemed genuinely unaware of his scrutiny. Her indifference whetted his curiosity even as it stung his pride. There had to be something he could do to capture her attention.

The idea came to him like a thunderclap: he would throw her and Pieter a party! Women adored parties. And ulterior motives aside, it was no less than she deserved. He’d issue Pieter an invitation first, he decided then. If the trapper accepted, she might be more inclined to follow suit. And if she felt a just little left out in the meantime, well—that was fine with him, too.

“So tell me, Pieter,” he said, in a voice loud enough to be overheard. “What are you going to do while you’re home in Compara?”

“Not much,” the trapper replied. “I’ll probably spend most of my free time with my aunt, which means quiet dinners by the fire and lots of rest.”

“No offense, my friend,” Jamus told him then, “but that doesn’t sound very exciting.”

“I’ve had more than my fair share of excitement on this trip,” he drawled. “A week or so of peace and quiet will do me good.”

“Peace and quiet are splendid antidotes for overwrought nerves, but in large doses, they can be just as taxing as any adventure. What you need, old boy, is a little variety.”

“Such as?” Pieter prompted, recognizing a pitch when he heard one.

“I’d like to host a party in your honour,” Jamus replied, “as a token of my appreciation for your friendship and aid. I’ll have your favourite meats cooked to a fine turn, and all the gish that you can possibly consume. I’ll hire the finest minstrel in Compara, and a troupe of dancers as well.

“Will you come, my friend? I’ll do my best to make it a night you won’t forget.”

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Pieter declared.

Jamus laughed and clapped the trapper on the back, then turned his smile on Lathwi. “And how about you, my dear? By rights, this party should have two guests of honour. Will you come?”

“No,” she replied.

“Come on now, don’t be such a spoilsport,” he wheedled. “I’ll bet that you’d have the time of your life.”

“What ‛bet’, Pieter?” she asked. She had heard the word before, but had gotten no clear impression as to its meaning.

“A bet is a sort of game played by two or more people,” he said. “Each player predicts the outcome of a particular event—such as a horse-race or a fight—and then promises something of value to the one whose prediction comes true.”

She pondered the explanation for a moment, then said, “So Jamus predict I want eat ruined meat and drink not-water that make me stomach-sick and head-sore in morning?”

“That’s what it sounded like to me,” he agreed, unable to keep a smirk from his tone.

“Stupid prediction,” she said.

“So it would seem.”

She turned a toothy grin on Jamus. “What you promise?”

“Nothing,” he grumbled, casting her a look as black as a storm cloud. “Nothing at all.”

“Nothing got no value,” she pointed out.

“I believe he has reconsidered the matter and no longer wishes to bet with you,” Pieter told her. “Next time, shake his hand after he proposes a bet that you’d like to accept.”

“Why?”

“That’s how we sanctify our promises in this province.”

“Saying promise not suffice?”

“Not always,” he said, a hint of sadness creeping into his tone. “Some men will say anything to get what they want. Their promises don’t mean a thing to them or anyone else.”