She rose and brought a little table to his bedside. On it was a tray with a large covered dish set beside two smaller ones. She lifted the lid on the large dish. Selden stared at a mound of raw meat cut into chunks. An inadvertent sound of disgust welled from his throat. She stared at him. ‘Are you not hungry?’
‘If it were cooked,’ he said faintly. At the prospect of food, his mouth had begun to water, but the bloody red chunks of flesh only reminded him of his ultimate fate. He turned away, swallowing. His wakened hunger was making him nauseous.
‘I can remedy that,’ she said, and for the first time, her voice seemed free of bitterness. ‘I can toast it over the hearth here, and will welcome whatever you leave. My father does not think it fitting that women consume flesh. This is my provender.’ She uncovered the two smaller dishes. One held grain porridge with a generous pat of butter still melting in the centre of it, and the other a heap of boiled vegetables in an orange, yellow and green heap. At the sight of them, Selden’s stomach growled loudly. The homely smell of stewed turnips, carrots and cabbage almost brought tears to his eyes.
Chassim was silent for a moment. ‘If we share all, there is enough for both of us to dine well.’ Her voice was hesitant, her eyes downcast.
‘Please,’ he begged, and something in that simple word woke the first shadow of a smile he had seen on her face.
‘Please,’ she said softly to herself, as if the word were foreign to her. ‘Yes. And with thanks.’...
‘Alise!’
The voice came again and she recognized it as Sylve’s. Before she could respond, the keeper called once more, ‘Alise? Are you in here? Tarman’s coming. They’re back!’
‘I’m back here, Sylve!’ Then the meaning of the girl’s shout penetrated her distracted mind. Tarman had been sighted. Leftrin! He was back! And she was on the wrong side of the river. He’d be expecting to find everyone at the village site, not in the city. She leapt to her feet, dragon dentistry discarded. Leftrin was coming, and she looked a fright! She hurried to the door of the chamber and peered out into the tall, wide corridor. ‘Where’s Heeby?’ she demanded as Sylve came barrelling toward her. Behind the girl, the tall double doors stood open to the gusty wind of the spring day. Alise hoped the little dragon and her keeper would carry a message to the ship for her.
‘She and Rapskal are guiding Tarman in! Carson says he thinks our dock will hold, but not be very good for unloading yet. He’s worried about it, but I think it will be a good test of what we built.’
‘Tarman is coming directly here?’ She had even less time to prepare for him.
‘Yes! We sighted them coming on the river, not long after the dragons had their quarrel.’
‘Dragon quarrel?’ Alise interrupted in alarm. ‘Was anyone hurt?’ She must have been tightly focused on the city to have remained unaware of that!
‘No, no injuries among the keepers. It happened in the air, downriver. We couldn’t see much of it, but we did see Mercor give Spit a good tumble. But Spit rose again, so he couldn’t have been much hurt, and then the whole flock of dragons moved farther away down the river. So we still don’t know what that was about. But shortly after that, we spotted Tarman!’