The Dragon Keeper
Page 141

It saddened him. He suspected that if she knew half the things he’d done in his life, she’d have nothing to do with him. He didn’t like that he had to conceal part of what he was to enjoy her companionship, but he would. He’d do whatever he must to have what little time with her that he could. He was already at an immense disadvantage with such a fine lady. Here he was, a Rain Wild riverman with little more than a boat to his name. She couldn’t even imagine what a unique and wonderful boat the Tarman was. She couldn’t possibly see his ship as his fortune. So he didn’t know why she seemed to like him. He worked hard and expected he always would. He had no fine home to present to her. His clothes were rags compared with the garments of her dandified escort; he wore no rings. Before she had set foot on his ship, he’d had little more ambition than to continue doing what he’d always done: carrying freight shipments up and down the river, and making enough to pay his crew and to have a good meal when his schedule allowed him to overnight in a town. He’d had his chance to make a fortune selling off that wizardwood. He could have been a wealthy man now, with a palatial home in Jamaillia or Chalced. He didn’t regret the decision he’d made; it was the only right thing he could have done.
Yet he wondered at how small a life he’d been willing to settle for. He wished in vain that he’d foreseen that some day such a woman might walk into his life. If he had, perhaps he would have saved the sort of wealth that might impress her. But what could he have acquired that could compare with whatever her rich husband in Bingtown offered her?
He looked at the little scroll again. He wondered if he should have killed the Chalcedean merchant and dropped him over the side before they ever reached Trehaug. He didn’t think of it casually; he’d only killed one man, long ago, and that had been over a game of chance gone wrong, with accusations that he was cheating. He hadn’t been, and when the fellow and his friends had made it clear that they’d kill him before they let him walk off with his winnings, he’d beaten one man unconscious, killed another, and fled the third. He didn’t feel proud that he’d done so, only competent that he’d survived. It was another decision that he refused to regret.
So now as he contemplated retroactive murder, he did it only in a “what if ” frame of mind. If he’d killed the merchant, he would not be standing here now holding this threatening scroll, he wouldn’t have to wonder which of the people who would be accompanying him on his journey was a traitor to the Traders, and he wouldn’t have to speculate on whether Sinad Arich had really had a finger in his winning this sweet plum of a contract. And, he thought, as he reduced the scroll to shreds of fiber and dropped them out of the window, he wouldn’t be worrying if he’d have to do something that might cause Alise to think less of him.
“TIME TO GET UP!”
“Get up, pack your stuff, rouse your dragons!”
“Get up. Time to get on your way.”
Thymara opened her eyes to the gray of distant dawn. She yawned and abruptly wished she had never agreed to any of this. Around her, she heard the grumbles of the other rousted keepers. The ones doing the rousting were the people who had accompanied them from Trehaug to here. Their duties would come to an end today, and apparently they could not wait for them to be over. The sooner the keepers rose, woke their dragons, and began their first day’s journey, the sooner the escorts who had brought them here could turn around and go back to their homes.
Thymara yawned again. She supposed she’d better get up if she wanted anything to eat before the day started. She’d never known just how much and how fast boys could eat until she’d had to share a common cook pot with them. She sat up slowly, clutching her blanket to her, but the chill morning air still reached in to touch her.
“You awake?” Rapskal asked her. Ever since they’d left Trehaug, he’d slept as close to her as she would allow him. One morning she’d awakened to find him snuggled up against her back, his arm around her waist and his head pillowed against her. The warmth had been welcome, but not the awakening to sniggers. Kase and Boxter had teased them relentlessly. Rapskal had grinned rakishly but uncertainly; she suspected he wasn’t quite sure what the joke was. She’d resolutely ignored them. She told herself that Rapskal’s need to be near her had more to do with a kitten’s desire to sleep close to something familiar than any amorous intent. There was no attraction between them. Not that she would have acted on it if there had been. What was forbidden was forbidden. She knew that. They all knew that.