A Natural History of Dragons (7 page)

Many might laugh at me for my fascination—and in fact many did; this was not an eccentricity we could keep entirely quiet—but I rapidly learned that there is far more to sparklings than my childish eye had seen. They differ in size, color, and conformation between males and females, and there is more than one breed; I identified three in the vicinity of Pasterway, though I have since revised that analysis. I learned their behaviours and habits, and poured much unsuccessful effort into coaxing them to breed in captivity.

Earth-shaking discoveries they were not, but the simple fact that I made them lifted me out of my depression and back into the realm of social life. I went out once more, and hosted gatherings at our house; Jacob spent more time at home. With their delicate tails and scintillating wings, sparklings healed the damage my heart had suffered.

In a sense, therefore, sparklings led me to my life’s work not once but twice: first when they seeded my childhood interest in natural history, and again when they brought me back to myself following the miscarriage. Had I not recovered then, I would not have met Maxwell Oscott, Earl of Hilford, and heard of his Vystrani expedition.

Even before my miscarriage, I went to Renwick’s less often than before; it is not the best place for recreation if you are not on the catch for a spouse or shepherding a relative through the process. Jacob’s younger brother, though, had decided to advertise himself as an eligible bachelor, and Jacob had promised to help look out a suitable wife for him.

It was not the best choice for my first truly public outing since my miscarriage. The press of people threatened to become overwhelming, and I had occasion to be glad that entry to the upper rooms was so closely regulated. True crowds, I fear, might have done me in.

As it was, I spent the evening reacquainting myself with Society, the ladies’ comments alternating between solicitous concern for my well-being and pointed barbs about my recent hobby. I endured these latter in polite silence, mostly for Jacob’s sake; left to my own devices, I would have loved to shock the earrings off some of the women I spoke to with a few well-chosen details about my sparkling breeding programme.

My one respite came from Miss Natalie Oscott, a merry-hearted young woman I met early in the evening, and found to be quite a congenial soul. Very nearly the first words I heard her speak were a comment on the historical scholarship of Madame Précillon, and when the ebb and flow of socialization left the two of us alone for a time, I found she had quite as much ink on her nose as I. When she offered to introduce me to her grandfather, I was glad to accept.

“He doesn’t often come here,” Miss Oscott said over her shoulder, leading me through the crowd, “but my cousin Georgia has designs on a husband, and Grandpapa insisted on meeting the fellow—ah, there you are. Have you put the fear of Heaven into the young man yet?”

“The fear of
me,
which is quite sufficient,” Lord Hilford said, pecking his granddaughter upon the cheek. He was not a tall man, balding and stocky of build, though without the large gut commonly observed among the older peerage. I could imagine him as quite fearsome to a prospective suitor, though he greeted me pleasantly enough. It transpired that he knew Jacob’s father, Sir Joseph, and he congratulated me upon my marriage. “Must have missed the news,” he said apologetically. “I’ve not been in Scirland much these last few years. Puts me quite behind the news, I’m afraid.”

“You’ve been abroad, then?” I asked.

Miss Oscott laughed. “Grandpapa’s hardly ever at home. Too busy visiting exotic places.”

Lord Hilford drew himself up with an air of aggrieved dignity, looking down at his granddaughter—or attempting to, for she was scarcely an inch shorter than he. “I’ll have you know, my girl, that the last six months were entirely for my health. My physician advised me to take the sea waters on Prania.”

“And the sea-snakes that can only be found off the coasts of Prania had
nothing
to do with it, I’m sure.”

Her words spurred my memory. “Didn’t you present to the Philosophers’ Colloquium about those creatures?”

He dismissed this with a wave of his hand. “Nothing terribly important. I spent six months swimming and being dosed with vile tonics I didn’t need in the slightest; the lecture was my attempt to get something of value out of the experience. I do travel for research, though, as my granddaughter has so pointedly indicated.”

“That must be pleasant,” I sighed. “Jacob and I had hoped to take a tour after our wedding, but circumstances interfered. Where have your travels led you?”

As I had surmised from Miss Oscott’s evident fondness for her grandfather, it did not take much encouragement to get Lord Hilford started in talking about his research. He puffed up a little and hooked his thumbs into the pockets of his waistcoat. “Here and there. After so many years, the places do pile up. I was with the army in my youth, during our wars in Akhia, but the desert doesn’t agree with me; the sun is too harsh.” One hand came away from its perch to rub at his hairless pate. “Not enough to protect me up top, you see, and I went bald at a young age.

“Nor am I much of a sailor,” he went on, “so it’s the mainland for me, I fear. In fact, I think the climate of Prania did more harm to my joints than good. Rheumatism, you know. I intend to try the mountains next—a research expedition to Vystrana.”

There are any number of animals in Vystrana that one could go to study, but in truth, my mind went straight to the creature I had seen a few years before, in the king’s menagerie. “Dragons?”

Lord Hilford raised one white eyebrow at me. “Indeed, Mrs. Camherst.”

“But—do you not study sea creatures?”

“I have a little of late, but only in pursuit of a side theory of mine, regarding taxonomy. If I’m a poor sailor, what sort of seagoing naturalist would I make, eh?” Lord Hilford shook his head. “No, Mrs. Camherst, my interest is primarily in dragons. We know very little of them, compared to other creatures—it’s a terrible shortcoming in our learning.”

It called to mind a fellow Jacob and I had dined with once. “Do you know Lord Shalney, by any chance?”

His laugh turned out to be the basso version of Miss Oscott’s. “Verner? Certainly. I take it you’ve heard his diatribe on our lack of dragon knowledge, then.”

“Shortly after my wedding,” I admitted. “Vystrana, you say?”

“There’s a breed of dragons there—we call them rock-wyrms, though the locals call them
balaur.
Not a native word; it may be a loan from Bulskoi or Zmayin. Relatively approachable, as dragons go, and one doesn’t have to endure too much in the way of dreadful weather to find them, at least in the proper season. I often wonder what it is about dragons that makes them prefer extreme climates—or is it just that we’ve pushed them back as we’ve spread out? Were there once simple field- and meadow-dragons that liked their living more comfortable? I couldn’t say, but Vystrana seems a reasonable place to try and observe the ones we have.”

I was a better hand at concealing my enthusiasm these days than I had once been. I like to believe the expression I presented to Lord Hilford was one of polite interest, rather than the quivering excitement I held within. “I am sure my husband will look forward to reading about your findings.” He would have to wait, though—first for Lord Hilford to conduct his expedition, then for him to issue his report, and finally for me to snatch it out of the mail and devour every word before giving it to him. Jacob found dragons interesting, make no mistake, but not with my degree of passion. He could read it after I was done.

“Grandpapa brought a dragon back from Vystrana once,” Miss Oscott put in. “He gave it as a personal gift to the king.”

“The albino?” I asked, looking to Lord Hilford.

He nodded, beaming at the memory of his own accomplishment—as well he might, given the difficulties involved. “You saw my little drake, I take it?”

“In the king’s menagerie.” I blushed a little, wishing I could do it as prettily as some ladies, and admitted to him, “Jacob and I met there, in fact. Not just in the menagerie, but in the dragon room itself. It made me so very low when I heard the Vystrani had died.”

The earl looked philosophical. “Yes, well, don’t blame Swargin; he did his best. They rarely thrive away from their homelands. Most efforts to transport dragons fail outright, of course, and then they do poorly in captivity. The imperial dragon-men of Yelang claim they’ve been able to propagate some of their local breeds, but I have my doubts. My little white outlasted that Akhian, though!”

I remembered Mr. Swargin talking about the desert-drake’s delicate constitution. I had hoped for her to survive, but she had succumbed to a pulmonary illness even before my wedding. “Was that one your acquisition as well, my lord?”

“Only in part. I did help capture her—and swore blind after that I would never go to the desert again—but the Duke of Conchett was the one who presented her to the king.”

Not one dragon captured and brought into captivity, but two. My estimation of Lord Hilford was climbing steadily, and had not been low to begin with. “And the Moulish swamp-wyrm?”

He laughed outright. “Nothing could persuade me to attach my name to that thing. Ill-tempered and as intractable as they come, and an ugly example of the breed to boot. Not that Moulish dragons are ever what one might call attractive, mind you. But I’m certain its breath contributed to the ill health of the Akhian—of course, our climate also had much to do with it; I’ll put blame where blame is due—and it bit my little white more than once, when it got out of the control of its keepers. No, Mrs. Camherst, the Moulish beast was
not
my doing.”

“I hope I haven’t offended,” I said, though I rather doubted I had.

“Not in the least. You do an old man’s sense of self-importance good, asking so much about dragons.”

I returned his smile, and resolved to find some way to thank Miss Oscott for her part in bringing me to her grandfather’s acquaintance. “I wish you luck in your Vystrani expedition. When is it scheduled to depart?”

He waved one hand again, a gesture I was beginning to suspect was habitual. “Not until next year. Hard to arrange things from Prania, especially when you’re being laid low by sea journeys and vile tonics, and I have some relations who insist they like me and would like to see me once in a while.” He gave his granddaughter a mock-suspicious look. “Either that, or they’re luring me home so they can whack me over the head and get the inheritance at last.”

Miss Oscott put on a look of airy innocence, and we all laughed. Then, not wanting to impose more than I already had on the earl’s time, I bid them a good evening and made my way once again through the crowds of Renwick’s.

Locating Jacob took some time. When I succeeded at last, I found him in a foul temper, owing to unspecified fraternal antics. It put something of a damper on my bubbling enthusiasm; this was clearly not a good time to bring up Lord Hilford and his expedition. Instead we made our departure from the hall, and went to the house Jacob kept in town, where we stayed on our Falchester trips. Feeling somewhat deflated, I prepared for bed, then lay for nearly an hour in the dark, staring at the ceiling and thinking of Vystrana.

FIVE

Advantageous correspondence — An unwise request — I speak my mind — An unproductive morning — The risk of lunacy — What other people might say

Judging by the number of letters we received at our house over the next two months, Lord Hilford was more than happy to correspond with my husband about his lecture and everything else under the sun. Jacob read bits of these out loud to me, mostly anecdotes of natural history, but occasionally the earl’s biting observations about the trials of spending time with family. I gathered that he was glad for the excuse to closet himself away from them for an hour or two and engage his mind with the questions of a colleague.

I cultivated that connection with every wile I possessed, for I had awoken the morning after Renwick’s utterly possessed by a single notion: that Jacob should join the expedition. By now I had every confidence that we would hear all the details, not merely those digested for lectures and articles; but it was not enough. Jacob must go, and I could live the experience vicariously through him.

Or so I thought at the time.

Over a quiet dinner one night, I found I had achieved my goal. “Isabella,” Jacob said during the main course, “would you object if I went abroad?”

I did not drop my fork, though my hand forgot to mind it for a moment. “Abroad?”

“Lord Hilford’s planning an expedition—” Jacob stopped himself mid-sentence and eyed me across the tureen of stewed carrots. “But I don’t need to remind you of that, do I? You’ve orchestrated it very well, I must say.”

“Orchestrated?” I made a valiant attempt at an innocent expression. “Lord Hilford had that expedition in mind long before I met him.”

“But not that I should be a part of it. Admit it, Isabella; you’ve been nudging me toward him and his Vystrani escapade, since—when? Certainly since the beginning of summer. As far back as Renwick’s?”

“Not that early,” I said, avoiding a lie by the narrowest of margins. The hour of sleeplessness
after
Renwick’s did not count as
at
Renwick’s.

“It can’t have been long after that. I can’t say I object, precisely; Hilford’s fast become a good friend. You could have been more open about it, though.”

I studied my husband at the other end of the table and replied with more honesty than I’d intended. “Would you have listened, had I been blunt? Had I told you from the start what I had in mind—that you should deliberately seek out and befriend a peer of the realm, for the purposes of worming your way into his foreign expedition?”

Jacob frowned. “When you put it like that, it sounds dreadfully presumptuous.”

“Precisely. And it
would
have been presumptuous, had you had any such intention—which means you probably wouldn’t have done it at all. Therefore, I approached it more subtly.”

The twitch of his eyebrow said he was not persuaded by my logic. “Meaning you had that intention on my behalf.”