Kudshayn gave me an infinitesimal nod. It’s a sore point for them, watching people like Lady Plimmer (not to mention Lord Gleinleigh) buy up artifacts from his people’s past. But at the same time, those artifacts are scattered across the world, in such quantity that even if the Draconeans could afford to gather all those things themselves, they would fill the entire valley of the Sanctuary from one mountain wall to the other. Kudshayn saves his battles for the important pieces—things like this epic—instead of trying to stop the whole trade, which would only drive it further underground. When it comes to the standard answer, he’d rather I be the one to parrot it.
I dabbed at my lips with my napkin and said, “With caution, Lady Plimmer. Some countries, Scirland included, have laws about the excavation and sale of Draconean antiquities, but those are by no means watertight. Reputable auction houses like Emmerson’s should provide what’s called a provenance, a document telling you the ownership history of anything they sell. You should be very suspicious of anything that says the object was acquired from a private collector in Gillae—that’s a red flag that it was stolen or illegally excavated.”
“My goodness! I certainly would not want to associate myself with any criminal activities. Thank you so much for warning me, my dear, and for the recommendation to Emmerson’s. I had been thinking about approaching—what was his name, Marcus? That fellow you have bought things from. Dorrick or some such.”
“Joseph Dorak?” I offered up, all innocence.
I can hardly say I was surprised when Lady Plimmer confirmed the name. Dorak’s legitimate business is a fig leaf for the biggest antiquities smuggling enterprise in Scirland. No, the shock came a moment later, when Lady Plimmer said, “I must say, Marcus, your expedition to Akhia seems to have inspired you to turn over a new leaf. Why, I would have sworn the sun would rise in the west before you had a single kind word to say about Draconeans, much less allowed one to set foot in your house.”
This time the silence felt like the instant between the firing of a gun, and the moment when the bullet strikes.
Lord Gleinleigh cleared his throat. “Lady Plimmer, you must have misunderstood me—”
“Oh, I can’t imagine that’s true. My eyesight is not what it once was, but my memory remains as sharp as ever. This was about five years ago, I think. Magister Ridson chastised you for collecting so many Draconean antiquities, and you said—”
“What I said then has no bearing on the present moment,” Lord Gleinleigh said in the loud voice of a man who’s hoping to drown out the next words if he can’t cut them off entirely. “It is quite discourteous of you, Lady Plimmer, to bring up past unpleasantness like that, when it is clearly over and done with.”
She apologized, while I sat there with that hot-and-cold feeling all over my skin, the way you do when you’ve just had a nasty jolt and don’t yet know what to do. What Lady Plimmer said . . . she didn’t use the word, but she as good as called him a Calderite.
And Lotte saw him talking to Mrs. Kefford.
And Aaron Mornett came to his house late that one night.
I simply don’t know what to make of this. If Lord Gleinleigh really is a Calderite, why on earth would he recruit me to translate the tablets, instead of Mornett? I can’t persuade myself it’s because Mornett tried and failed. He’s capable of the work, and far more congenial to such views. Whereas I am as far from a Calderite as any human is likely to get, so I don’t see how involving me would suit Lord Gleinleigh at all.
And more to the point, why would he suggest hiring a Draconean as well? Calderites think the ancient past is fascinating, but preferred when it was in the past, rather than being inconveniently present and alive and complaining about their ancestral ruins being looted to decorate places like Stokesley. The last thing they would ever do is invite a Draconean to come and lay claim to an important relic like this one.
But then again . . . every time Lord Gleinleigh shows concern for Draconean sensibilities, it rings false. Or no, not false—that isn’t fair. Stiff, I should say. Unpracticed, at the very least. Which I chalked up to him being uneasy around a two-meter dragon-winged creature with a muzzle full of sharp teeth; most humans are, until they get used to it. But what if it’s because he was hiding something?
I got an answer of sorts a little while later; I’m just not sure if I believe it. We couldn’t leave immediately after dinner without offending our hostess, but fortunately she doesn’t have turn-of-the-century notions about how people should entertain themselves at that point—or if she does, she doesn’t enforce them. Cora got drawn into conversation with a young lady named Miss Simpson, who I think is the closest thing she has to a friend in the neighbourhood, and I lost sight of Kudshayn. Imagine how delighted I wasn’t, then, when Lord Gleinleigh caught me almost immediately and drew me aside.
Did I say he was stiff? I might have been forgiven for thinking he had a belaying pin stuffed up his backside. “Please forgive me, Miss Camherst,” he said, as if a dentist were extracting the words from his mouth one by one. “I confess that I have not always harboured generous attitudes toward the Draconean species, but you must not think that Kudshayn is at all unwelcome at Stokesley. I value very highly the work he is doing.”
It obviously cost his pride a great deal to say that, but I could only give him so much credit for it, especially when he said “the Draconean species” rather than “the Draconean people.” And even more so when he went on to say, “You know that I would have faced down those Hadamists for his sake, that day at the airfield, if matters had not taken such a violent turn.”
My hackles immediately went up. I haven’t forgotten that he tried to get between me and Hallman . . . but why point to that as proof of good intentions, when nothing much came of it? Unless the entire reason Gleinleigh stepped forward in the first place, or rather tried to, was because he wanted to show off how friendly he is toward Draconeans. Gleinleigh doesn’t strike me as the heroic type; I think he would have crumpled like wet paper the moment something went wrong. But even the attempt would have made him look good.
I managed not to say any of that, and I hope it didn’t show on my face. I said, “Thank you, Lord Gleinleigh—but I’m not the one you should be taking pains to reassure. Or have you already spoken to Kudshayn?” (I knew he had not, because he came to me straightaway.)
“I have not,” he said, even more stiffly, “but I will. Assuming you can tell me where—”
His unfinished question was cut short by a rattling crash from elsewhere in the house. We all stampeded to see what had caused it, and discovered that Miss Simpson’s friend Miss Ashworth was the reason Kudshayn had gone missing. They were in the ballroom, and a whole line of chairs that had been set along the wall were now strewn across the floor.
Kudshayn apologized profusely to Lady Plimmer as soon as she appeared, while Miss Ashworth, failing to suppress giggles, tried to restore the chairs to order. “What happened?” Lady Plimmer asked—I have never heard two words sound so much like two blocks of ice.
“I was trying to teach him to dance!” the irrepressible Miss Ashworth said.
Kudshayn’s bows were reverting to Yelangese style the more of them he made. “I am afraid that I lost my balance. In my attempt to restore it, I—ah—”