Dragon's Heart (22 page)

"So I
am
going?"

Henkky nodded and then they laughed.

When Henkky held up the hand mirror, Akki stared at herself. "It
does
look good."

"And it changes your face, emphasizing the planes. You've lost weight, and now with this haircut, you look younger and more innocent."

"How do you know this sort of stuff?" Akki touched the fringe. "You're a doctor."

"You'd be surprised what someone can learn hanging around with the baggerie girls." Henkky set the scissors and hand mirror down on her dresser.

Akki thought for a moment. "Is that a good thing?"

Henkky shrugged. "It's
useful.
Like right now. And I can promise you that no one who has known you before will know you now."

"No one but the two of you know me here."

"How about the girls in the baggeries you helped treat last year? The members of the rebel cell you joined? Your father's old friends?"

Akki shrugged. "The girls paid no attention to me. The rebels have all been rounded up and sent offworld. And my father's old friends looked on me as an annoying little girl."

"Don't be so sure," Henkky told her.

Akki picked up the mirror and looked again.
Maybe she's right—but
I
don't recognise me.
Still, she wanted nothing to do with Golden's senate race. "Do I
have
to go to the debate?"

Dr. Henkky put her hands on Akki's shoulders. "We must do everything we can to get Golden reelected. His election's necessary—for Austar, for the dragons, for Sarkkhan's Nursery, for everything we hold dear."

"Good haircuts, fine dresses ..." Akki couldn't disguise the bitterness in her voice.

"Now, my girl, there's dear—and dearly bought. You have to learn the difference. I know I have, though it's taken this last year for me to see it. Golden can help us—master and bonder, freemen and freewomen all." Henkky's face was unreadable, but there was a slight twitch under her left eye.

Akki hesitated, before saying, "I believed that once. Entirely. When Golden came to my father's nursery as Ardru. When he helped Jakkin give his dragon a fighting chance in the pits. When he was my father's friend. When he helped us escape from the mountains. But now ... How can I trust him now? He's lied to me. He's manipulated me."

"And me," Henkky said. "It's his nature." She turned away, almost as if she didn't want her face to deny what her mouth said. "Whatever you think of him, he stands between us and total chaos. If I'm to keep working as a doctor, if you're to save the dragons, if we're to keep the rebels from our throats..."

Akki stared at Henkky's back. "I thought the rebels were gone, the worst ones sent offplanet, the innocents transformed into model citizens—
freed
model citizens."

Henkky whipped around. "Who told you that?"

"Golden did. In the truck. Today. Though I'd already heard it in the nursery from ... well, from everyone. I mean, it's common knowledge. All the men in the nursery have been talking about it." Looking at Henkky's furious face, Akki took a deep breath. "I guess they're not to be trusted, either? Boys and their games and all that. Like Golden."

Henkky smiled slowly. It didn't change the anger in her eyes. "The men were repeating what they'd been told. But not all the worst rebels have been caught yet. Or sent away. And believe me, Golden's
not
to be trusted. He'll charm you out of your last copper. Or into another of his lizard-drool schemes. But even eyes-open and knowing he's not to be trusted, you go along with him. You have to."

"Why?"

Henkky looked down and said nothing.

"Because
you
love him?"

The doctor's answer spread across her cheeks in a red glow.

"You
love
him," Akki repeated, suddenly thinking of Jakkin. Even when she was angriest at him, she loved him. Sighing, she sent out a fall of soft gray rain with his name running through it in dark blue. Just in case. Just in case he'd managed to follow her to The Rokk.

Immediately, she received two sendings.

"
Danger?
" It was a soft violet aura, instantly recognizable.
Golden's Lib.

"
Danger?
" It was brighter, more pointed, not an aura but a zigzag pattern of light reds and pale blues. The hatchling.
Aurea.

Akki took another deep breath and sent back reassurances in the shape of a rainbow that incorporated both Lib's violets and Aurea's reds and blues. But though she listened with all her might, opened herself to the faintest of sendings, there was nothing from Jakkin. Not a signal, not a sending, not a sign.

"
Fewmets! Where are you?
"

She didn't trust Golden. She could not now entirely trust Henkky. She guessed that she was really on her own.

***

THEY ROUNDED UP the two little dragons and led them out of the back door into the garden.

Akki had never seen anything like it. It reminded her a bit of Jakkin's oasis, where she'd helped him train Heart's Blood. There was a miniature pool, rimmed with reeds, and some high tufted grass in the background, as tan as the reeds. Patches of leafed-out burnwort were wreathed in smoke near the tufted grass.

To one side of the pool stood a wooden structure with various flowers twining over its poles. She didn't recognize any of the flowers.
Offworlders. Like Golden.
A one-and-a-half-story greenhouse, with glass panels and wooden shutters, sat against the far wall, the sun flooding into it. It was filled with gourds and beans and other things she couldn't name.

A swath of cut grass, green as the eyes of little stinging insects, lay like a rug under a wooden table and chairs. The grass was all so perfect—and so perfectly astonishing—Akki was afraid to step off the walkway for fear of leaving crushing footprints.

The two dragons had no such fear. They galloped onto the green, Aurea banging into and overturning one of the chairs. Then they dove together into the pool, emerging to shake themselves dry. The water drops sailed across the grass to puddle near Akki's feet. The dragons then began to munch happily on the wort. Lib ate daintily, one leaf at a time. But the hatchling grabbed up an entire cluster of leaves all at once. She looked so silly, with several smoking leaves hanging out of the sides of her mouth, that first Akki and then Henkky laughed aloud.

The noise startled the dragons, and they bounded away, back to the pool, where they started the whole performance all over again.

"What have we here?" It was Golden. He'd come into the garden silently. Of course, the dragons had been making so much noise, it wasn't a surprise that they hadn't heard him until he spoke.

They turned as one to greet him, Henkky giving him an embrace and Akki glaring.

"What, my darling goddaughter isn't pleased to see me?" The exaggerated drawl, the slight mocking smile, the tight-waisted suit that was the color of the grass, all this made him as different from the Golden she'd known in the copter, as the Boomer she'd met in the truck.

Akki was at a loss for words.

"
Niece,
you old faker," Henkky said. "We'd better get that story down pat at dinner." She held out her hand to him and sat him down at the little table.

"And dinner will be soon, I hope."

"Senekka is at it now."

"How can I be bonded to a woman who can't cook? I should take Senekka to be my bondmate instead."

"She's not your type," Henkky said smugly. "And you love me because my work is more important to you than food."

He put his arm around her waist and drew her close, winking at Akki as he did so. "Nothing, my darling, is more important than food. As our young friend/niece/goddaughter there found out in the mountains. Food and shelter. And she will tell you all about it, once she finds her tongue." Laughing, he stood and led the doctor back into the house, where Akki, half reluctantly, half eagerly, followed.

***

AKKI DIDN'T expect it, but the dinner was astonishingly good. It wasn't the mash-and-bash dinners that Kkarina served up at the nursery—hearty, to be sure, but numbingly familiar. This dinner consisted of small portions of freshly picked and nicely steamed vegetables from the greenhouse. When bitten into, they released exotic herbs and spices. There was some sort of rice-and-egg dish that was entirely filling. And large crusty rolls with an empty center that could be filled with a sweet berry jam or a salty nut spread. She'd never had such a wonderful meal in her life, and said so to Senekka as she rose to help bring the dirty dishes into the kitchen.

"Sit down, goddaughter." Golden spoke in a drawling, haughty voice that was as much an act as Boomer's graceless sentences.

"Niece," Henkky reminded him.

Akki smiled at him. "If all Austarians are now equal—master and bonder—then shouldn't we do equal work?"

He leaned back in his chair, his hands clasped over his chest, and laughed. "When you can cook as well as Senekka, you will command her price. And it's not a small price, either, especially since all my friends have been trying to tempt her to leave me and go cook for them. She'd leave, too, if she weren't so enamored of me. Isn't that right, sweet-meatling?"

Senekka made a face at him.

He shook his forefinger at Akki. "So, till your skills are equal to hers, sit down and let her work at her own pace."

Senekka took the plates from Akki's hands. "He's right, you know. The kitchen is my domain. Not his. Not hers. And definitely not yours. I don't like anyone else banging around in it." It was more than she'd said so far, and she disappeared immediately through the kitchen door after making the pronouncement.

"And now," Golden said, the drawl gone for good, "let me tell you what tomorrow promises."

As if I'd go.
But Akki was curious, and so she listened.

Tomorrow, it seemed, would pit the four men running for Golden's senate seat against one another in a debate at the senate hall. In the actual debate, they would be allowed to speak on any subjects they wanted to for twenty minutes. In the free-for-all that followed, they would challenge one another's assumptions, proffer their own in exchange, and none of it done politely.

Henkky added that in the free-for-all, they might also call an opponent names, mock his suit, his ideas, his physical attributes, or his ancestry. "In fact," she added, "everything is allowed then but violence."

"Well, at least the candidates have to be above the 'violence of the hand,'" Golden said. He seemed to be quoting actual rules, and only half seriously at that. Standing, he went over to a side table on which takk was bubbling away in a glass pot.

"Though not 'the violence of the mouth,'" Henkky added. She held up her cup for a refill, which he quickly poured for her. "Wit and wisdom combined with a wicked tongue are what wins the day."

"Is that
truly
how a senator is elected?" asked Akki, who'd never voted, having up to this time been too young, too female, too rural, and a proclaimed bonder. "It's ... barbaric."

"Truly," Golden said charmingly, his hand on his heart. "You must trust me in this." But as Henkky had indicated earlier, there was very little to trust about Golden at all.

AFTER DINNER, Akki didn't stay up long. At Akki's third yawn, Henkky thrust her out of the dining room, where she and Golden were on their fourth cups of takk, topped up with chikkar, "the liquor of the gods," as Golden called it, though which gods he declined to explain.

"Down the hall, second bedroom," Henkky said. "You'll find your satchel on the bed. There's a shower room attached. See you in the morning." She held up her cup in a mock salute.

Akki left them gladly. As welcoming as they'd been, they seemed much happier in their own company and not eager for her to stay on with them. Besides, she was furious with them both, and disappointed, too. She disliked being manipulated, and hated even more being told what she had to do. Anger had raged inside her like dragon fire since the beginning of dinner. She thought she would burst apart with it if she had to remain a minute longer. She was surprised it took Henkky three yawns before dismissing her.

She found the room easily, unpacked, and took a quick shower. As a nursery-bred girl she was always careful about using too much water. Then she scrambled into a nightshirt, which was scrunched by its long day in the satchel, and hung up the two leather outfits.

There was a scratching at the door, and when she opened it, the hatchling raced into the room, sniffing in all the corners before settling itself on the rug.

Yawning for real this time, Akki fell onto the bed, an Austarian double, which was one and a half times the size of her bed at the nursery. Although she meant to stay awake and sort through her feelings—as well as her options—sleep grabbed her by the throat and wouldn't let her go until morning.

***

IT WAS the sound of the city rousing that finally woke her up—trucks starting, loud voices laughing, the slapping of boots on the paving. She'd forgotten how different those sounds were from what she was used to at the nursery or in the mountains. There, the first signs of morning were natural sounds—birds, insects, the pippings from the incubarn. For a moment she was unsure of where she was, but then quickly remembered: Golden's house, her own room, this big bed.

As she lay there stretching, she considered how the day might unroll. She knew the end of it, of course—the debate. But there were many hours to fill till then.

At her feet, the hatchling stirred, sending her a mental yawn the color of an early morning sky, light blue shot through with yellow.

"Hello to thee, too, my darling," Akki said aloud. "I'm taking thee out to the garden before we have any accidents. I think Henkky will kill me if thee leaves fewmets on the rug."

She got out of the bed, stretched again, shucked out of her nightshirt and back into the same leathers she'd worn the day before. Glancing at the two party dresses hanging on a hook near the door, she shook her head. There was no reason to get into either of them, not until it was close to debate time. And hanging in the closet was the other set of leathers, just like the one she had on. No need messing them before she had to. She would take the hatchling to the garden, have a quick breakfast, then check out the basement lab.