City of Dragons. Робин Хобб

daylight could reveal that even those with some claim to being genuine were in poor health.

      Like him.

      The lantern light came closer, the yellow glare making his eyes water. He turned his face away from it and closed his eyes. He didn’t get up. He knew the exact length of the chains attached to his ankles, and he had tried his strength against theirs when they had first brought him here. They had grown no weaker, but he had. He lay as he was and waited for the visitors to pass. But they halted in front of his stall.

      ‘That’s him? I thought he would be big! He’s no bigger than an ordinary man.’

      ‘He’s tall. You don’t notice it so much when he’s curled up like that.’

      ‘I can hardly see him, back in that corner. Can we go in?’

      ‘You don’t want to go inside the reach of his chain.’

      Silence fell, and then the men spoke in low voices. Selden didn’t move. That they were discussing him didn’t interest him in the least. He’d lost the ability to feel embarrassed or even humiliated. He still missed clothing, badly, but mainly because he was cold. Sometimes, between shows, they would toss him a blanket, but as often as not they forgot. Few of those who tended him spoke his language, so begging for one did him no good. Slowly it came to his feverish brain that it was unusual that the two men discussing him were speaking a language he knew. Chalcedean. His father’s tongue, learned in a failed effort to impress his father. He did not move or give them any sign that he was aware of them, but began to listen more closely.

      ‘Hey! Hey, you. Dragon boy! Stand up. Give the man a look at you.’

      He could ignore them. Then, like as not, they would throw something at him to make him move. Or they would begin to turn the winch that tightened the chain on his ankle. He’d either have to walk to the back wall or be dragged there. His captors feared him and ignored his claims to be human. They always tightened his chain when they came in to rake out the straw that covered the floor of his stall. He sighed and uncoiled his body and came slowly to his feet.

      One of the men gasped. ‘He is tall! Look at the length of his legs! Does he have a tail?’

      ‘No. No tail. But he’s scaled all over. Glitters like diamonds if you take him out in the daylight.’

      ‘So, bring him out. Let me see him in the light.’

      ‘No. He doesn’t like it.’

      ‘Liar.’ Selden spoke clearly. The lantern was blinding him but he spoke to the second of the two shapes he could discern. ‘He doesn’t want you to see that I’m sick. He doesn’t want you to see that I’m breaking out in sores, that my ankle is ulcerated from this chain. Most of all, he doesn’t want you to see that I’m just as human as you are.’

      ‘He talks!’ The man sounded more impressed than dismayed.

      ‘That he does. But you are wiser not to listen to anything he says. He is part dragon, and all know that a dragon can make a man believe anything.’

      ‘I am not part dragon! I am a man, like you, changed by the favour of a dragon.’ Selden tried to put force behind his shout, but he had no strength.

      ‘You see how he lies. We do not answer him. To let him engage you in conversation is to fall to his wiles. Doubtless that was how his mother was seduced by a dragon.’ The man cleared his throat. ‘So. You have seen him. My master is reluctant to sell him, but says he will listen to your offer, since you have come so far.’

      ‘My mother … ? That is preposterous! A wild tale not even a child would believe. And you can’t sell me. You don’t own me!’ Selden lifted a hand and tried to shield his eyes to see the man. It didn’t help. And his words didn’t even provoke a response. Abruptly, he felt foolish. None of this had ever been about the language barrier. It had always been about their unwillingness to see him as anything other than a valuable freak.

      They continued their conversation as if he had never spoken.

      ‘Well, you know I’m only acting as a go-between. I’m not buying him for myself. Your master asks a very high price. The man I represent is wealthy, but the wealthy are stingier than the poor, as the saying goes. If I spend his coin and the dragon-man disappoints him, coin is not all he will demand of me.’

      They were silhouettes before his watering eyes. Two men he didn’t know at all, arguing over how much his life was worth. He took a step toward them, dragging his chain through the musty straw. ‘I’m sick! Can’t you see that? Haven’t you got any decency at all? You keep me chained here, you feed me half-rotted meat and stale bread, I never see daylight … You’re killing me. You’re murdering me!’

      ‘The man I’m representing needs proof before he will spend that much gold. Let me tell you plainly. For the price you are asking, you must let me send him something as a sign of good faith. If he is what you say he is, then your master will get the price he’s asking. And both our masters will be well pleased with us.’

      There was a long pause. ‘I will take this matter to my master. Come. Share a drink with us. Bargaining is thirsty work.’

      The men were turning. The lantern was swinging as they walked away. Selden took two more steps and found the end of his chain. ‘I have a family!’ he shouted at them. ‘I have a mother! I have a sister and a brother. I want to go home! Please, let me go home before I die here!’

      A brief flash of daylight was his only answer. They were gone.

      He coughed, clutching at his ribs as he did so, trying to hold himself tight against the hurt. Phlegm came up and he spat it onto the dirty straw. He wondered if there was blood in it. Not enough light to tell. The cough was getting worse, he knew that.

      He tottered unsteadily back to the heap of straw where he bedded. He knelt and then lay down on his side. Every joint in his body ached. He rubbed at his gummy eyes and closed them again. Why had he let them bait him into standing up? Why couldn’t he just give up and be still until he died?

      ‘Tintaglia,’ he said softly. He reached for the dragon with his thoughts. There had been a time when she was aware of him when he sought for her, a time when she had let her thoughts touch his. Then she had found her mate, and since then, he had felt nothing from her. He had near-worshipped her, had basked in her dragon glory and reflected it back to her in his songs.

      Songs. How long had it been since he had sung for her, since he had sung anything at all? He had loved her, and believed she had loved him. Everyone had warned him. They’d spoken of the glamour of dragons, of the spell of entrancement they used to ensnare humans but he hadn’t believed them. He had lived to serve her. Worse was that, even as he lay on the dirty straw like a forgotten pet, he knew that if she ever found him again and so much as glanced at him, he’d once more serve her faithfully.

      ‘It’s what I am now. It’s what she made me,’ he said softly to the darkness.

      In the next stall, the two-headed dog whined.

       Day the 7th of the Hope Moon

       Year the 7th of the Independent Alliance of Traders

       From Kim, Keeper of the Birds, Cassarick to Reyall, Acting Keeper of the Birds, Bingtown

       Please convey to your masters that I find it extremely distasteful that an underling such as yourself has been given the assignment of conveying these disgusting allegations against me. I believe that being allowed to act as Keeper of the Birds in Erek’s absence has given you an inflated sense of importance that is entirely inappropriate for a journeyman to display to a Master. I suggest further that the Bird Masters of the Bingtown Bird Keepers’ Guild look at your family connections and consider the jealousy your kin bear for me with regards to my promotion to Bird Keeper in Cassarick, for I think there they will find the heart of this vile accusation.

       I decline to contact Trader Candral regarding this matter. He has lodged