CHAPTER TWO
THE FULL-HOUR BELL was ringing as I finally lifted the latch of the gate that led to the kitchen of my master’s house. Irsa, one of the bondmaids, was standing at the delivery door with the miller’s man. I watched as she laughed, her hands spread on her hips to show their generous shape, as the young man hoisted a large sack onto his shoulder. Then she saw me and quickly stepped back into the shelter of the doorway. Her coy giggles dropped into the hissing undertones of gossip. The miller’s man swung around and stared at me, his fingers curling into a ward-evil sign. I looked away and made a show of shutting the gate. Better to wait until he followed Irsa into the storage rooms.
When the courtyard was clear, I walked slowly up the path toward the kitchen. Lon, the gardener, was on his knees repairing the low bamboo fence that enclosed the Sun Garden. I nodded as I passed, and he waved a dirt-crusted hand. Lon mainly kept to himself, but he always greeted me with gentle courtesy and even had a smile for Chart, the slops boy. But his kindness was not copied by many of my master’s other staff. Our small household was very much divided: those who believed a cripple could be a Dragoneye, and those who did not. All who served my master knew that his wealth had nearly run dry; there would be no funds to train another candidate. If I did not secure the apprentice bonus and the 20 percent tithe tomorrow, my master was ruined.
The kitchen doorway was open and I stepped over the raised threshold that kept evil spirits from entering the house. Immediately, the heat from the large cooking stoves pressed against my skin and I smelled the sharp tang of sour plum sauce and salt-baked fish: my master’s evening meal. Kuno, the cook, glanced up from the white-root he was slicing.
“You, is it?” He turned his attention back to the vegetable. “Master has already ordered the gruel,” he said, tilting his shaved head at a small pot hanging over the spit fire. “Don’t blame me when you eat it. It was according to his instructions.”
My evening meal. As part of the cleansing ritual, I was allowed only one bowl of millet gruel before praying throughout the night to my ancestors for guidance and help. A few months ago, I had asked my master whether it mattered that I had no knowledge of my ancestors. He stared at me for a moment, then turned away before saying, “It matters very much.” My master was being very careful; he said we must do everything according to Dragoneye tradition to avoid attracting council scrutiny. I could only hope that old Hian’s precedent for the Reverse Horse Dragon Second was in the history scrolls. And that my master could find it in time.
A rasping noise rose from behind the large wooden preparation table that stood in the center of the room: Chart, calling me from his mat beside the stoves.
“He’s been waiting for you,” Kuno said. “Been getting under my feet all day.” He sliced off the end of the white-root with an extra heavy chop. “You tell him I’m not blind, I know he’s been at the cheese.” Although they had worked in the same kitchen for eleven years, Kuno still refused to speak to Chart or even look at him. Too much bad luck.
I skirted around the end of the table and used its worn edge for balance as I sat on the stone floor beside Chart. He tapped my knee with a clawed finger, his lolling mouth slowly forming a smile.
“Did you really get some cheese?” I asked softly, shifting my weight off my aching left hip.
He nodded vigorously and opened his hand to show me a piece of dirty cheese rind. The muscles in his throat contorted as he struggled to speak. I listened for his words in the strained, elongated sounds.
“For . . . the . . . rat.” He pushed the rind into my hand.
“Thank you,” I said, slipping the cheese into my pocket. Chart was always giving me food he had found. Or stolen. He was convinced that if I fed the big gray rat that lived behind the storeroom where I slept, the Rat Dragon would repay the kindness by choosing me as his apprentice. I wasn’t so sure an energy dragon would take note of such a thing, but I still gave the scraps to the rat.
From beneath his body, Chart pulled out a thick slice of fine bread covered in dust. The master’s bread. I glanced at Kuno; he was still bent over the white-root. I moved to my right until I hid Chart and the bread from view.
“How’d you get that? Kuno will whip you,” I whispered.
“For you . . . only gruel tonight . . . you be hungry tomorrow.” He dropped the bread into my lap.
I ducked my head in thanks and stuffed it into my pocket with the cheese. “I think that’s the whole idea. They want us to be hungry,” I said.
Chart twisted his mouth into a puzzled grimace.
I shrugged. “We’re supposed to prove our natural stamina by doing the approach ceremony hungry and tired.”
Chart rolled his head back and forward across the mat. “Stu . . . pid,” he said. He took a deep breath and steadied his head against the side of the firewood box, fixing his eyes on mine. “Tomorrow morning you come . . . say good-bye?” His fingers closed around my wrist. “Come say . . . good-bye . . . before the ceremony? Promise?”
Chart knew that if I was chosen, I would not come back. A new apprentice was taken straight to his Dragon Hall after the ceremony. A new home. A new life. My scalp prickled from a sudden wave of heat and sweat; tomorrow I could be a Dragoneye apprentice.
“Promise?” Chart said.
I nodded, unable to talk through the squeeze of panic in my throat.
He let go of my wrist, his hand suspended in the air. “Tell me . . . what the . . . Rat Dragon Hall . . . is like . . . again.”