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“She’s a mature dragonelle. Perhaps she found a mate,” Hazeleye said. “The lead male the Ghioz had, he seemed a fine specimen.”
“I’d like to visit this cave of hers,” AuRon said.
“She left her books at Mossbell, where they’d be looked after,” Lada said.
“She reads?” AuRon asked. Strange how they’d both picked up the habit.
“Wistala holds the title of librarian,” the innkeeper said. “There’s another story there, getting that title.”
“Title?”
“It’s a Hypatian rank,” Hazeleye said. “The Hypatians are fond of their various ranks. Military, priestly, judicial, scholastic, and of course governing. You can get honorary titles for sport or artistry.”
AuRon itched himself under the chin with the bottom of the doorframe. Some greasy, sausage-scented saliva had found its way down there. “How interesting.”
“It was a trick of my father’s, for the preservation of his estate,” Lada said. “Wistala owns most of this land, in a manner of speaking.”
“There was talk of making her thane,” the innkeeper said. “That’s an ideal thane, to my mind, one who’s never around to collect his taxes.”
The room chuckled at that.
“My full belly asks for sleep,” AuRon said. “Thank you for the sausages, innkeeper.”
“Jessup does for friends,” he said.
“Would someone aid me in finding that cave you spoke of?”
“I know the way,” Lada said.
“Can you ride a dragon bareback?”
“I’ll have to shut my eyes the whole way,” she said. “I’m not one for flying.”
“That wouldn’t be much help in finding the cave.”
“It is not a long trip on foot. I’m used to walking, and these woods are no longer dangerous.”
They said their good-byes. Hazeleye seemed lost in her pipe, shifting her blanket-covered legs this way and that before the fire.
Lada led him out across grassy hills. AuRon smelled horses and cattle, but saw only a few of the latter, who shied and milled nervously when they smelled him. Now and then he heard hoofbeats as groups of horses fled his approach.
AuRon liked the smell of Lada. It had been long since he had had a human female tickling his nostrils, so to speak. The scent excited him; though he was hundreds of years from being counted an old dragon, her scent made him feel young, as though he’d just uncased his wings.
“So, by those robes you are a person of importance,” AuRon said, passing the time. To talk he’d have to keep close to her. “Do you have a title too?”
“I wonder if she will return,” Lada said, as though she hadn’t even heard his question. “It seems I always lose my loved ones a year or two before I learn to value them. I’m a foolish, foolish woman.”
“That cannot be true,” AuRon said. “These people look up to you.”
“They look up to me because they looked up to my grandfather, an elf of great mind and experience, yet who looked beyond even his own faculties and experiences for greater wisdom still.”
She’d pushed Parl to the limit with that last speech. She knew how to wring every drop of meaning from a trade tongue, whatever her imagined failings. “Elf. So you’re partly elf?”
“Yes.”
“Then tell me. What is Hazeleye hiding under that drooping hat?”
“She loves dragons, you know.”
