This didn’t surprise him, as the items she was removing from the last net bag included a teapot, a pitcher, and two small bowls of the type he knew were used to drink tea. But the small bamboo scoop gave him pause. “Not the full tea ceremony?”
“Of course. It will not be a proper ceremony.” She had saved some of the water brought by the boy; she poured it into the teapot now. “I do not have proper implements. But we will do what we can. You may fold two of the blankets to cushion our knees.”
“Madame,” he said with strained courtesy, “I do not think my leg is up to kneeling.”
“Then do not kneel.” She paused to glance at him, her dark eyes bright with humor. “I have had my hands in your guts. I think it is time for you to call me Grandmother.”
“Ah . . . very well.” She meant it as an honor. At least he thought she did. Or did she want him claiming kinship to strengthen her right to tell him things the dragons didn’t want him to know? Or was she asserting her authority as his elder?
All of the above, probably. He folded two blankets, sat on his with his bad leg outstretched, and waited with what patience he could muster as she set out the tea things. Lily did not enjoy the tea ceremony. He did, but this was hardly the time or place for it. Still, he understood why she needed the ritual. It was a way of formalizing what she was about to tell him . . . though what that might be, he couldn’t guess. He was already up to his ears in dragon secrets.
Top of that list was their bizarrely convoluted reproduction. Dragons had a little genetic hitch: they were born male. All of them. The transformation to female involved them eating gold—hence their reputation for collecting treasure—and possibly the help of their brethren, although that was a guess.
After a newly female dragon mated and laid her eggs, she began reverting to what the brownies called primitive mind, ruled by instinct and unable to use almost all mind magic. When those eggs hatched, the babies had to be named in a process that required the assistance of someone who could mindspeak them. Without that, the babies’ minds would be closed to mind magic forever, mute and deaf to the only speech possible to them. That was where dragon spawn came from. They were the products of a botched hatching, one without a midwife capable of mindspeech, who had been transformed. In human forms, they could use human speech and not be locked in mental solitary confinement.
Unfortunately, this didn’t seem to keep them from being sociopaths.
At last Madame knelt on her blanket. If the position was hard on aging joints, she gave no sign of it. Before she could begin, he spoke. “I know I’m supposed to clear my mind, to focus on the ceremony. Before I do that, I have a question about these secrets. Will you—”
“There are two secrets.” She moved one cup a fraction of an inch. “One is very old. It is about all dragons. The other is more recent. It is about one dragon. Lily is entitled to know these things because of her heritage. You are not. I will tell you anyway.”
That almost answered the question she hadn’t let him ask. “Is that going to get you in trouble?”
“We are in a great deal of trouble already. Do you ask, like Gan, if the dragons will be angry?”
“I want to know if they’re going to come after you.”
“Dragons are not all one thing. Even more than humans, each is his own. Humans feel a need to agree with their group, whatever that group may be. Dragons . . .” She shrugged.
“Feel a need to disagree?”
A small smile. “Perhaps. In any event, there are very few subjects upon which they agree sufficiently to act jointly. This is not one of those subjects.”
She did not say they wouldn’t be angry, he noted. “And if one or more of them decides to act on his own?”
“It is unlikely any of them would attempt to rebuke me, as that would annoy Sun. But if so, I will deal with them. No more discussing. We begin. I will heat the water.”
There was nothing here to heat the water with. He did not point this out.
She folded her hands together under her breasts and sat for a moment in a stillness so palpable he could almost smell it. Then she reached out in a sure, graceful gesture to lift the large teapot . . . which was steaming.
First she filled the small teapot and swirled the hot water around in it. Her movements were slow, as stylized and graceful as a kabuki dancer or a ballerina. When she poured hot water into the cups, one hand supported the other arm as if she were holding back the long, draping sleeve she wasn’t wearing.
Having filled the pot and cups, she promptly emptied them into a bowl set off to one side. She opened the paper holding a small cake of black tea with a pungent aroma and broke off a piece, crumbled it, and placed three pinches in the bamboo scoop. It was now, he knew, time to appreciate the tea. She danced the scoop around, pausing near him so he could enjoy the sight and scent of it, then brought it back. Each movement was precise and slightly exaggerated, with subtle flourishes added to enhance the sense of a dance. Rule found his shoulders easing, his muscles relaxing into the moment.
She poured a little hot water into the small teapot, using a brown napkin to catch any drips. Even the way the napkin was held was part of the ritual. Then she slid the tea leaves into the pot. When she filled the pot with hot water, her arm lifted so the sight of the flowing water became part of the ceremony. As water united with tea, scent bloomed.
She immediately poured from large teapot into small, and from small teapot into cups—then, one by one, emptied all of them into the bowl at her side. The first pouring was never drunk. Then she rested, hands under her breast, allowing the tea to steep.
Rule’s mind drifted. He was hungry. The rolls he’d eaten were more of a snack than a meal. No meat, and he needed meat, but that need seemed a consideration for later, not for this moment. Other thoughts floated in, most of them all too familiar, like the image of his son’s empty bed. But in this moment, Toby was all right. He remembered seeing that empty bed, remembered the tidal wave of fear and rage, but that hadn’t happened yet. He would get to his son in time. He could let that thought go. Thoughts of Lily were harder to set aside. She might be suffering now, in this moment.
. . . or she might not.
That thought snagged his attention, striking a spark of surprise. He’d forgotten that not-knowing meant that he didn’t know. Lily might be doing well. She might be badly hurt. She might be somewhere in between, anywhere in between. He didn’t know, and he didn’t have to keep reacting as if one thought were more real than the others simply because it frightened him.