Blood of Tyrants. Naomi Novik

said, half to himself, as though trying to explain to his own satisfaction what had brought them so much undeservedly good fortune. Laurence, for his part, should have liked to know what he had done either evil or good so as to produce all the ills of his present situation, but as he did not accept Junichiro’s explanation, he could only attribute it to some forgotten act of his lost eight years. “And we are on the Chikugo River, following it to the Ariake Sea,” Junichiro added. “That is between Chikugo Province and Hizen Province—”

      “Hold, you leap too far ahead,” Laurence said, and made Junichiro explain a little more of the geography of the nation, a small country like his own; they were upon the island of Kyushu, which after a little description Laurence mentally classed with Scotland: it was not the largest, nor the site of the capital, but the home of considerable wealth and industry; and this divided into several provinces.

      “Nagasaki is in Hizen Province, on the western side of Kyushu—and Hizen is on the Ariake Sea, like Chikugo, so it will be much easier to get to there,” Junichiro added, and with a finger dipped in river water sketched him a very rough shape on the dry part of the dragon’s back, which shortly evaporated but left Laurence with the comfort, not inconsiderable for a man who was used to knowing his precise latitude and longitude at nearly every moment, of having some approximation of his bearings.

      Junichiro said it should require the entire course of the day, to see them to the shore of the inland sea; Laurence settled himself low in his basket and prepared only to wait: the rocking motion of their journey was familiar, and he was ready to yield himself to sleep when cries from the bank started him up. He looked and saw a small crowd of people urgently waving a banner bearing several large-painted characters in red, which they had been in the process of rigging out on the riverbank from a signpost.

      “Oh,” Junichiro said, taken aback, and Laurence, looking over, wondered if this were to their account—couriers, he supposed, might have carried around a warning to be posted to try to capture them. But after a brief hesitation, Junichiro reached down into the water and tugged on one of Kiyo’s tendrils.

      Her head burst from the surface, rivulets streaming away, and the people on the riverbank renewed all their clamor; she did not hesitate for an instant herself, but immediately shifted her course out of the river’s current towards them, and as they neared Laurence could see the chief of the delegation, as he supposed, bowing deeply before they had even come to shore.

      Kiyo climbed out partway onto the shore to speak with this man, balancing herself on forelegs in a pose reminiscent of the great sea-dragon which Laurence had seen. The conversation, naturally, proceeded entirely in Japanese. Laurence crouched in his basket and tried as best he could to avoid any notice, which effort met with success only because no-one present showed the least interest in Junichiro or himself; all their attention was fixed on the dragon.

      It struck him abruptly that Kiyo also had no captain, no master; as neither had Lady Arikawa nor Lord Jinai, nor even the light-weight who had ferried about the magistrate and his servants. Laurence was startled, and startled even more that he had not even noticed it before this moment; he had thought nothing of it at all.

      It ought to have been certain proof of an untamed ferocity. Dragons required a captain, harness, crew, all the forms of control, to be tolerated anywhere near settled country, or they would rampage and destroy; any beast not so restrained could only be penned in breeding grounds and bribed with cattle to remain there. So Laurence had always supposed—so he had always known. But even as he articulated to himself this commonplace understanding, it rang false. Proof to the contrary was before him, of course—but that should have seemed peculiar, disconcerting, and did not.

      He had not managed to explain it to himself when the discussion concluded and Kiyo turned her head over towards them and said, “Down you get!”

      Junichiro obeyed at once, and leapt to unbuckle the baskets; Laurence had scarcely any alternative but to follow his example, and hide his face from the expectant delegation by keeping it turned towards her side. They at least did not immediately seize him. Unburdened, Kiyo plunged back into the river and opened her jaws: she began at once to swell up into that wide immensity which Laurence had witnessed the previous evening. This time when she had reached her full size she did not bring the water forth again, but swaying and ponderous dragged herself up onto the shore, and in a strangely gargled voice gave direction. The delegation all turned and set out along a track that led away from the river, carrying their banner with them.

      “What is happening?” Laurence asked Junichiro quietly, as they trailed in Kiyo’s wake; but he might have reserved his questions. The path turned quickly out of the trees and opened onto a truly splendid wide-open vista: a series of very wide terraces falling away from them down a sloping hillside, each full of water and faintly green with the earliest sprouting of rice plants, though surely the season was too early. There was yet a sharp chill of frost in the air, which Laurence thought must be inimical to any farming, although only to be expected at this time of year.

      At the summit stood a great stone basin with a wide irrigation channel running away from it down the hill: peering over, Laurence could see more channels leading to either side into each terrace. The delegation here broke up, and most of the number went running swiftly down narrow pathways along the hillside, calling notice: workers in the fields, who were mostly busy staggering under yokes of water-buckets, raised their heads from beneath wide-brimmed hats and, seeing the dragon, hurried to take themselves out of the terraces until they were lining the hillside paths.

      From a village visible at the base of the hill, a neat hamlet of thatch-roofed houses, more people were streaming to join the welcoming party, children running with a cheerful clamoring; more banners were being carried out of a larger house, perhaps ceremonial, and set at the foot of the hill in bright array.

      Kiyo was leaning forward into the basin and dipping her face into it, shaking her head so the tendrils made a great cloud around her. Laurence could hear a peculiar gurgling and hissing from her side, an internal noise like a man digesting an excessive meal. She raised her head up and shook off the droplets, and then nodded to the anxiously waiting delegation. Two of the great banners had by now reached the summit and were fixed to either side of the basin, cracking in the wind. All were standing silent, in attitudes of tense expectation.

      Kiyo adjusted her position, and then she opened her jaws wide and began to expel the water into the basin: not in any massive quantity at first, a thin stream like the jet of a small fountain, but Laurence was astonished to see the water so hot that it was steaming in the open air. Shortly the rime of white ice, half-an-inch wide, which edged the pool in the stone basin had melted entirely away, and water was running softly away down the channels. Kiyo paused in her work and put her face into the basin again—perhaps working out in some way the desirable degree of heat—and then she sat up again and began once more, in earnest.

      The gush of water came out of her jaws as from a kettle, steaming-hot, and went running down to water all the fields—likely saving them from that very frost which Laurence had noticed. As he watched the process, he realized that the Japanese might well receive from this influence an entirely additional growing-season: if they might rely on such a rescue, when a frost threatened the crop, they might begin the first planting earlier, and take the second harvest later, and get two crops instead of one. Their urgency was easily explained, now; having drawn the attentions of a water-dragon so soon likely had saved more of the crop.

      When Kiyo had reduced herself back to her original dimensions and closed her jaws again, and the men along the hillside had tried each shallow terrace and waved one after another their banners in signal of success, the general relief was nearly palpable. More bowing and ceremonial thanks ensued, and though there were no effusions, no broad beaming expressions, even so shoulders had straightened; anxiety had lifted. Laurence could not fail to interest himself in proceedings so foreign to his experience, and yet so familiar: he had ridden the estate with his father on occasion as a boy, and there was not so great a difference between the expressions of the tenants receiving relief in the case of some disaster to their crops or homes, and the present—though his father had not nearly so dramatic a support to offer.

      Nor so general: the entire village had benefited, here, and