Tooth and Claw Read Free

utterly.
    “My mother never bore more than two at a time,” Berend said. “I am hoping my next will be three also. The more children the better, under Veld.”
    “It is good to see you so obedient to the teachings of the Church,” Frelt said, inclining his head to her this time. “Many of the farmers here seem reluctant to lay at all.”
    “It is exactly the same at Daverak,” Berend lamented.
    “What is?” Illustrious Daverak asked, looking interested for the first time when he heard his domain mentioned. He was almost as dark as his black dragonet, and very broad-shouldered, his eyes were so pale as to seem almost pink, not at all a good-looking dragon. If it were not for the binding of the wings, anyone would have thought Frelt a finer specimen, and Frelt rejoiced a little more than he should have to know it.
    “The lack of dragonets among the farmers and lower classes, dear,” replied Berend fondly.
    “I don’t know, there are plenty, plenty indeed,” Illustrious Daverak replied. “Why, the Majes on the causeway farm had another clutch only six days ago. I meant to fly down and check them over today, if it hadn’t been for this confounded summons.”
    Berend drew back a little. “My father is dying,” she said, with dignity.
    “Oh yes, my dear, we had to come, I know that. I didn’t mean that harshly,” Daverak said, dipping his wings to his wife, who acknowledged this contrition with a tiny inclination of her own wings. “But the Majes have had four born, you know, and they can’t possibly manage another four on that bad land, and I was thinking to bring something nourishing home for little Lamerak.” He gestured with a wingtip at the green dragonet. “A bit off color, you may have noticed,” he said to Frelt. “Temporary, strictly temporary. He needs fresh liver. He shall have it soon in any case. Our coming here made no difference to that, now that I think of it.”
    Frelt did not reply that his own little sister, who had been snapped up years ago by a lord for being too green, might have thrived on dragon liver, if she could have got it. “I am sure your own parson pays attention to such things, as you do,” he said.
    “I do my duty,” Daverak said, drawing up his wings. “I wouldno more allow a weakling son of mine to grow wings than that of the meanest farmer. But that is no reason to be hasty. Lamerak will be fully recovered in a week or two.”
    “Veld gives us children and Jurale watches the order of the world,” Frelt said, holding out his arms as if conducting a service.
    Illustrious Daverak drew back, feeling rebuked, and Berend looked away, disappointed in Frelt and unwilling to speak. An uneasy silence fell in which the sounds of the dragonets playing seemed loud.
     
3. THE DINING ROOM
    In the dining room, things were at first much happier. The room was much less elegant, being older. It had the most modern runnels in the floor for sanitary purposes, but otherwise it had remained unchanged since the cave had been hollowed, back in the Time of Subjugation. The inhabitants of the dining room knew it is not elegance that makes a pleasant gathering but the temperament of those gathered together. By selection of like to like, all the unpleasant members of the party had gathered in the speaking room, and all the pleasant in the dining room.
    Haner and Selendra were hatched of the same clutch, had grown up together in their father’s house, had comforted each other after their mother’s death, and had endured their older sister and brothers leaving them with mingled fortitude and relief. They were old enough to marry, but because their father’s treasure had been much depleted by the good marriage of their elder sister and the settlement of their two brothers they had been content to wait and kept house for their father until it should have replenished itself. They were therefore perfectly at home in his big dining room. They wereused to complaining that it had no convenient