Yet he wondered at how small a life he'd been willing to settle for. He wished in vain that he'd foreseen that some day such a woman might walk into his life. If he had, perhaps he would have saved the sort of wealth that might impress her. But what could he have acquired that could compare with whatever her rich husband in Bingtown offered her?

He looked at the little scroll again. He wondered if he should have killed the Chalcedean merchant and dropped him over the side before they ever reached Trehaug. He didn't think of it casually; he'd only killed one man, long ago, and that had been over a game of chance gone wrong, with accusations that he was cheating. He hadn't been, and when the fellow and his friends had made it clear that they'd kill him before they let him walk off with his winnings, he'd beaten one man unconscious, killed another and fled the third. He didn't feel proud that he'd done so, only competent that he'd survived. It was another decision that he refused to regret.

So now as he contemplated retroactive murder, he did it only in a 'what if frame of mind. If he'd killed the merchant, he would not be standing here now holding this threatening scroll, he wouldn't have to wonder which of the people that would be accompanying him on his journey was a traitor to the Traders, and he wouldn't have to speculate on whether Sinad Arich had really had a finger in his winning this sweet plum of a contract. And, he thought, as he reduced the scroll to shreds of fibre and dropped them out of the window, he wouldn't be worrying if he'd have to do something that might cause Alise to think less of him.

'Time to get up!'

'Get up, pack your stuff, rouse your dragons!'

'Get up. Time to get on your way.'

Thymara opened her eyes to the grey of distant dawn. She yawned and abruptly wished she had never agreed to any of this. Around her, she heard the grumbles of the other rousted keepers. The ones doing the rousting were the men who had accompanied them from Trehaug to here. Their duties would come to an end today and apparently they could not wait for them to be over. The sooner the keepers rose, woke their dragons and began their first day's journey, the sooner the men who had brought them here could turn around and go back to their homes.

Thymara yawned again. She supposed she'd better get up if she wanted anything to eat before the day started. She'd never known just how much and how fast boys could eat until she'd had to share a common cook-pot with them. She sat up slowly, clutching her blanket to her, but the chill morning air still reached in to touch her.

'You awake?' Rapskal asked her. Ever since they'd left Trehaug, he'd slept as close to her as she would allow him. One morning she'd awakened to find him snuggled up against her back, his arm around her waist and his head pillowed against her. The warmth had been welcome, but not the awakening to sniggers. Kase and Boxter had teased them relentlessly. Rapskal had grinned rakishly but uncertainly; she suspected he wasn't quite sure what the joke was. She'd resolutely ignored them. She told herself that Rapskal's need to be near her had more to do with a kitten's desire to sleep close to something familiar than any amorous intent. There was no attraction between them. Not that she would have acted on it if there had been. What was forbidden was forbidden. She knew that. They all knew that.

But she wondered if they all accepted it as deeply as she did.

Greft had strongly hinted that he did not. He was going to make his own rules, he'd said. So. What about Jerd? Would she keep the rules they had all grown up with?

As she rubbed the sleep from her eyes, she tried not to notice who slept adjacent to whom, nor to wonder what any of it meant. After all, everyone had to sleep somewhere. If Jerd always spread her blankets next to Tats, it could simply mean that she felt safe sleeping beside him. And if Greft always found an excuse to try to engage her in talk when the others were getting ready to sleep, it might mean only that he thought she was intelligent.

She glanced over at him now. He was, as usual, among the first to rise and was already folding his bedding. He slept without a shirt; she'd been surprised to discover that a lot of the boys did. Jerd, who had brothers, was surprised that she didn't know that, but Thymara could not recall that she'd ever seen her father half-clothed. She watched Greft as he scratched his scaled back. She knew that feeling of relentless itching. It meant that the scales were growing thicker and harder. She watched him bend his spine slightly so that he could ripple the scales up and scratch beneath them. If he was self-conscious at all about how heavily the Rain Wilds had marked him, he didn't show it. This morning it almost seemed as if he were showing off his body.

Her mind flitted back to his words the night he had all but driven Tats away. Greft wanted to make his own rules, he'd said. And he had already begun to do just that. She was a little surprised at how easily he had made himself the leader of their group. All he had to do was behave as if he were. All the younger ones had fallen in with him immediately. Only a few remained outside his spell. Tats was one of them. She suspected that if Greft had not made his move so quickly and so definitively labelled Tats as an outsider, Tats would have moved up to a position of leadership. Tats, she thought, probably knew that as well. Jerd was another one who regarded Greft with suspicion, or at least reservation. It's because we are both female, Thymara thought to herself. It's because of the way he looks at us, as if he's always evaluating us. She'd even seen it the first time he looked at Sylve; she'd almost seen him dismiss her as too young.

It was oddly flattering yet a bit frightening to have him look at her. As if he could read her thought or feel her gaze, he suddenly turned his head. She looked down, but it was too late. He knew she'd been staring at him. From the corner of her eye, as he stretched yet again and rolled his shoulders, she saw him smiling at her. She spoke to Rapskal before Greft could start a conversation with her. 'Are you awake? We're supposed to start our journey today.'

'I'm awake,' the boy said. 'But why do we have to start so early? The dragons aren't going to like being made to move before the day warms up.'

Greft responded before she could. 'Because the good people of Cassarick are very much looking forward to us being gone. Once we've moved the dragons out, they'll put docks along the shore here. They'll probably repair or perhaps properly build the locks they attempted to build for the serpents1. Done right, it would allow them to bring larger ships here from Trehaug. Improved shipping could mean that they could better exploit whatever they can dig out of the old city. And with the dragons gone, they'll feel safer about coming and going and digging deeper and closer to this place. To answer your question more directly, Rapskal, it's about money. The sooner we take the dragons out of here, the sooner the Traders can stop spending money on dragons and make more money from the buried city.'

Rapskal greeted his words with the furrowed brow and slight pout that meant he was thinking hard. 'But. . . why do they have to make us wake up so early? Will one morning make that much difference?'

Greft shook his head, muttered something uncomplimentary and turned away from the boy. A shadow of hurt flickered across Rapskal's face. And Thymara felt a moment of absolute dislike for Greft.   It startled her in its intensity.

'Let's get something to eat before we have to get going,' Thymara suggested quickly. 'This will be the last day that they feed the dragons for us. Beginning tomorrow, we're going to have to provide for them. And hope they can do a bit of providing for themselves.'