“Damn it,” I said. The words came out thick, and I realized I had teared up. “Why do we have to be the ethical ones?”
“Because Samšin promised the world justice,” he said softly. “And even if she brought cruelty in the end, that does not make her promise any less worthy.”
This isn’t justice. Justice would be Gleinleigh and Mornett and Mrs. Kefford failing in their plans and being driven from the public sphere. Justice would be the Draconeans having their own nation, a true sanctuary for their people.
Maybe that latter can still happen. They have Grandmama and Grandpapa on their side, and all the human allies those two can bring to bear. They have allies of their own, especially in Yelang.
But I don’t hold out much hope.
DRACONEAN HISTORY REVEALED
Lord Gleinleigh’s Tablets Scheduled for Publication
Lady Trent’s Granddaughter, Translator
“Fit to stand among the epics of the world”
Carrigdon and Rudge, publishers of the memoirs of Lady Trent, announced today that they will soon be printing a translation of the tablets discovered by Marcus Fitzarthur, Lord Gleinleigh, in the Qajr region of Akhia. Although less than a year has passed since they were brought to Scirling shores, all the world has been champing at the bit to see what tale they have to tell.
The translation is the work of Lady Trent’s granddaughter Miss Audrey Camherst and a Draconean scholar named Kudshayn. The two of them have worked night and day at Lord Gleinleigh’s estate of Stokesley to satisfy the public’s curiosity, producing in mere months what ordinarily would have been the work of years. When asked for comment, Lord Gleinleigh praised the skill of the translators, who are renowned in their field as some of the foremost authorities on ancient Draconean texts. “I have the utmost confidence in their work, which is both precise and accessible to a popular audience,” he said. Miss Camherst and her Draconean assistant could not be reached for comment.
Carrigdon and Rudge will be issuing the translation, under the title The Draconeia, in both a fine leather-bound edition and a paper-bound edition for the general market. Interested readers may pre-order either version now; the title will become available for sale on 6 Nebulis.
YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED
to attend a reception
at the Tomphries Museum
in honour of those individuals
whose generous contributions
to the museum’s collections
have enriched our knowledge
of the past
The reception will be held
on the evening of
the first of Acinis
at 7 o’clock
in the Whitsea Salon
Refreshments provided
with music and dancing
RSVP
FROM THE DIARY OF AUDREY CAMHERST
1 Acinis
I should be getting dressed, but I’m so nervous I can’t even look at my frock, much less put it on.
If only I could have found some graceful way to insist on taking the train into Falchester, instead of riding in Gleinleigh’s motorcar. But he would never let me take the tablet crate onto a train, and I can only imagine what would have happened if Kudshayn came with me. So into the car it was, and the trip took half again as long as it should have because Gleinleigh made a point of telling his driver to go very carefully lest the tablets get bounced around too much. I wound up feigning carsickness to avoid making any kind of small talk—and it isn’t even a lie, really, though it’s nerves that has my stomach all twisted up, not the motion.
How many times have I gone to this silly gala? Every year I’ve been old enough and in the country for it, I think, because Simeon always wants moral support. He hates these things, but the museum makes him be there, because they need to keep their wealthy benefactors happy, and those people like getting the glad hand from curators. Of course some of those benefactors are perfectly lovely people . . . but he can’t spend his entire evening in a corner talking only to the ones he likes. The rest of the time he has to make trivial conversation with snobs, ignoramuses, people who don’t realize they’re ignoramuses, people whose heads are full of very wrong things they Know to Be True, and people like Mrs. Kefford, who donate money to the Tomphries because they like having the heads of major public institutions in their pocket.
I shouldn’t have written her name. I was starting to calm myself down, and now I’ve undone it all.
The process of loaning the tablets to the Tomphries has begun. We deposited them this afternoon in the museum’s storage annex, which Simeon is using as a staging ground for shifting everything to Estwin Hall. Much of the Draconean collection has already been installed there, but they still need to move out Arnoldson’s Nichaean statuary before they can put in the rest of the cabinets and display cases; until that’s done, the remainder lives in the annex, on the street behind the main building.
You would think Cora wouldn’t find this very impressive, having grown up with her uncle’s thieving magpie ways, but I think she was knocked sideways by the sight of a properly organized collection. Everything in the annex is neatly labeled, and Simeon being who he is, a little challenge like swapping the entire Draconean exhibit with the entire ancient Nichaean one is no excuse not to put things on shelves in an orderly and logical fashion. He made space for the tablets we brought, even though I would have sworn there was no space to be had, and then went to work buttering up Lord Gleinleigh.
“I intend to have an entire cabinet showcasing the evolution of Draconean writing,” he said, “though I’m still working on selecting the right samples—I can scarcely get into my office, the tablets are stacked so high. Of course yours will have pride of place as an example of a very early style.”
“I hope they will be well guarded,” Gleinleigh said sententiously.
“Of course, my lord,” Simeon said—he didn’t even choke on the courtesy, which I’ve had trouble with lately. “The main building has the very latest in burglar alarms, and even here, we have a watchman on duty at all times.” He gestured around at the packed shelves. “Most of these artifacts have value only to scholars, but thieves often break such things in their pursuit of gold and jewels. We will not risk any harm coming to any of the objects under our care.”
(Visions of cat-burglary did dance through my head, I must admit. But if I were going to steal the tablets and hide them away for a decade or two, I should have done it while they were at Stokesley, where it would have been easy. No, Kudshayn is right, and we must follow through with our plan. We need the tablets as evidence, and they’re as safe in Tomphries keeping as anywhere else.)
Then Simeon surprised me by turning and addressing me. “We have an addition to the exhibit,” he said, “which we’ll be placing at the northern end of the hall. Arnoldson complained to high heaven, naturally, whining about having to move that sculpture of the Kymatian Ophiotaurus, just because it weighs more than fifteen thousand kilograms—but I persuaded Pinfell that if we are going to have an exhibit in honour of the congress, it would be incomplete without anything from Lady Trent.”
He led us further into the room, to a set of shelves containing crates with labels like preserved meteor dragon skeleton and dental sets from assorted draconic breeds, and glass jars full of biological specimens in formaldehyde. I recognized the handwriting on the labels; it is what Grandmama calls her “public hand,” the very careful script she uses when she needs someone other than herself to be able to read the result.