“No. He doesn’t like it.”
“Liar.” Selden spoke clearly. The lantern was blinding him, but he spoke to the second of the two shapes he could discern. “He doesn’t want you to see that I’m sick. He doesn’t want you to see that I’m breaking out in sores, that my ankle is ulcerated from this chain. Most of all, he doesn’t want you to see that I’m just as human as you are.”
“He talks!” The man sounded more impressed than dismayed.
“That he does. But you are wiser not to listen to anything he says. He is part dragon, and all know that a dragon can make a man believe anything.”
“I am not part dragon! I am a man, like you, changed by the favor of a dragon.” Selden tried to put force behind his shout, but he had no strength.
“You see how he lies. We do not answer him. To let him engage you in conversation is to fall to his wiles. Doubtless that was how his mother was seduced by a dragon.” The man cleared his throat. “So. You have seen him. My master is reluctant to sell him but says he will listen to your offer, since you have come so far.”
“My mother . . . ? That is preposterous! A wild tale not even a child would believe. And you can’t sell me. You don’t own me!” Selden lifted a hand and tried to shield his eyes to see the man. It didn’t help. And his words didn’t even provoke a response. Abruptly, he felt foolish. None of this had ever been about the language barrier. It had always been about their unwillingness to see him as anything other than a valuable freak.
They continued their conversation as if he had never spoken.
“Well, you know I’m only acting as a go-between. I’m not buying him for myself. Your master asks a very high price. The man I represent is wealthy, but the wealthy are stingier than the poor, as the saying goes. If I spend his coin and the dragon man disappoints him, coin is not all he will demand of me.”
They were silhouettes before his watering eyes. Two men he didn’t know at all, arguing over how much his life was worth. He took a step toward them, dragging his chain through the musty straw. “I’m sick! Can’t you see that? Haven’t you got any decency at all? You keep me chained here, you feed me half-rotted meat and stale bread, I never see daylight . . . You’re killing me. You’re murdering me!”
“The man I’m representing needs proof before he will spend that much gold. Let me tell you plainly. For the price you are asking, you must let me send him something as a sign of good faith. If he is what you say he is, then your master will get the price he’s asking. And both our masters will be well pleased with us.”
There was a long pause. “I will take this matter to my master. Come. Share a drink with us. Bargaining is thirsty work.”
The men were turning. The lantern was swinging as they walked away. Selden took two more steps and found the end of his chain. “I have a family!” he shouted at them. “I have a mother! I have a sister and a brother. I want to go home! Please, let me go home before I die here!”
A brief flash of daylight was his only answer. They were gone.
He coughed, clutching at his ribs as he did so, trying to hold himself tight against the hurt. Phlegm came up and he spat it onto the dirty straw. He wondered if there was blood in it. Not enough light to tell. The cough was getting worse, he knew that.
He tottered unsteadily back to the heap of straw where he bedded. He knelt and then lay down on his side. Every joint in his body ached. He rubbed at his gummy eyes and closed them again. Why had he let them bait him into standing up? Why couldn’t he just give up and be still until he died?
“Tintaglia,” he said softly. He reached for the dragon with his thoughts. There had been a time when she was aware of him when he sought for her, a time when she had let her thoughts touch his. Then she had found her mate, and since then he had felt nothing from her. He had near worshipped her, had basked in her dragon glory and reflected it back to her in his songs.
Songs. How long had it been since he had sung for her, since he had sung anything at all? He had loved her and believed she had loved him. Everyone had warned him. They’d spoken of the glamour of dragons, of the spell of entrancement they used to ensnare humans, but he hadn’t believed them. He had lived to serve her. Worse was that, even as he lay on the dirty straw like a forgotten pet, he knew that if she ever found him again and so much as glanced at him, he’d once more serve her faithfully.
“It’s what I am now. It’s what she made me,” he said softly to the darkness.
In the next stall, the two-headed dog whined.