The Dragon Keeper

Page 57

Thymara didn’t voice any of that. “What sort of ‘useful employment’ did they offer?” she asked quietly. Thymara kept her voice unaccusing, or tried to. She dreaded what her mother might answer. There were all sorts of “useful employment” in Trehaug. There was always the most hazardous digging in the buried Elderling city. It was backbreaking labor, shovel- and barrow-work, often done in near darkness, and always with the possibility that a door or wall in the ancient buried city might suddenly give way and release an avalanche of mud. Usually, they chose boys for that task because they were stronger. “Unproductive” girls like her were most often given the task of maintaining the bridges that traversed the highest and lightest branches. There had been recent talk of a major expansion of the network of footbridges that connected the widely scattered settlements on both sides of the Rain Wild River and a lot of debate as to how far a bridge of chain and wood could successfully be stretched. With a sinking heart, Thymara suspected she would be part of the team that would find out. Yes. That was probably it. Everyone in their neighborhood knew of her prowess at climbing. And such work would require her to leave her home and live close to the project. It would take her far from her parents, and perhaps even promise a swift end to her existence. Her mother might welcome that.
Her mother’s voice was falsely cheery as she began her tale. “Well. There was a Trader in the trunk market today, dressed very fine in an embroidered robe, and with a scroll from the Rain Wild Council. He said he had come looking for strong young people, for people without spouses or children, to undertake a special task in ser vice to Trehaug and to all the Rain Wilders. The pay would be very good, he said, and an advance would be given immediately, even before the task was begun, and at the end, when the workers returned to Trehaug, they would be well rewarded for their efforts. He said he expected many people would wish to be chosen, but that the candidates must be exceptionally hardy and tough.”
Thymara stifled her impatience. Her mother could never simply state something. She told a story or a piece of news by talking all around it. Asking her questions would simply take her down yet another side track. Thymara pressed her teeth together and held her tongue.
Her father didn’t have her patience. “So it’s not a marriage offer; it’s an offer of work. Thymara already has work. She helps me gather. And why should she wish for ‘a life of her own,’ as you put it, away from us? We are not getting any younger, and if there is a time when I would want her by my side, it is, as you put it, during our ‘declining years.’ Who else do you think will take care of us? The Rain Wild Council?”
Her mother pressed her lips together tightly, and the lines in her brow deepened. “Oh, very well, then,” she said bitterly. “I’ll say no more. I see I was foolish to listen to the man at all, or to think that Thymara might wish to have a bit of adventure in her life.” Almost quivering with indignation, she gave them a sour look and radiated silence and anger.
The main room of their house was tiny, but as her mother set the food on the woven pads onto the table mat, she pretended to ignore them. Thymara and her father both kept silent. Asking for more information would only increase her mother’s pleasure at withholding it from them. Feigning disinterest would win it more quickly. So her father filled the washbasin, used it, flung the dirty water out the window, and then refilled it for her. He passed it to her, saying casually, “I think that instead of harvesting tomorrow, we should make an expedition to bring back some new plants. Shall we rise early?”
“I suppose that would be wisest,” Thymara replied cautiously.
Her mother couldn’t stand that they appeared to be having a simple conversation. She spoke to the kura nuts she was grinding into paste. “I suppose I know nothing at all about my daughter. I thought she would be thrilled to work with the dragons. She seemed so interested in them when she was younger.”
Her father made a tiny hand motion at Thymara, cautioning her to keep silent so her mother would keep talking. Thymara couldn’t. “The dragons? The dragons I saw hatch, the abandoned dragons? I’d be working with them?”
Her mother gave a small, satisfied sniff. “Apparently not. Your father thinks it better that you remain here, to live with us until we shrivel up and die, and then for you to be alone for the rest of your life.” She set the bowl of mashed kura nuts on the food mat and placed a plate of weddle stalks beside it. She had baked flatbread at the community oven earlier in the day. There were six flats, two for each of them. It was not a plentiful or elaborate meal, but it would “fill the belly” as her father would say. Hungry as Thymara had been but a few seconds ago, she didn’t even want to look at it now.