Free Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton

city, where fruit always obtained high prices. This had slowly come to reconcile the neighbors, who also grew fruit and used the station for shipping it, so much that now Bon was almost accounted a benefactor to the district for having allowed it to be provided. Penn had several times made use of it in coming home, and it was his intention to make use of it again. The railway did not run all the way to Benandi. The previous Exalted Benandi, Sher’s father, had refused indignantly to have anything to do with it. It ran at its closest to within twelve miles of the establishment, where there was a little halt to which a carriage could easily be sent when there was a parson or a visitor to be collected. Naturally carts could also go to this halt to load their produce, in Benandi’s case usually sweetberries in summer and russets in autumn. In Benandi the railway was still far more deprecated than in Undertor, where the blessing was easier to see, as it ran so much closer.
    Penn had intended to take the railway as far as the Benandi Halt with his sister, and then have her fly the last few miles while he traveled by the carriage which he could cause to be sent for him. Now that Amer was added to the party, he reconsidered this and wrote to his wife, Felin, accordingly.
    Most dragons regard writing as a feminine accomplishment, and letter writing doubly so. In ordinary circumstances, even Penn would have asked one of his sisters to write a note to his wife for him. Yet he was a parson, and had mastered the difficult art of holding a pen between his claws, and he felt that what he wanted to say to Felin was of a sufficiently private nature to make it necessary to write it out himself.
    “My dear,” he wrote carefully. “I hope you and the children are well. My father is dead, as we expected, may his soul fly free. Selendra and I will depart for Benandi the day after tomorrow, and should be with you by the afternoon train. I find that it is necessaryto bring with me my father’s servant Amer, who was my nanny when I was a dragonet. She is anxious to accompany us rather than go to Daverak’s establishment, for reasons which I am afraid are largely sentimental, and of which I am very much afraid the Exalt” (here he meant Exalt Benandi) “will disapprove. Amer will doubtless prove useful to us with the children, and a help in the kitchen, she is very skilled in making preserves and potions.”
    After a moment’s thought he struck out the last two words, considered recopying the letter, gnashed his teeth, and let the matter stand as it was. Penn had already decided not to take Felin into his confidence on the matter of Frelt’s attempted seduction of Selendra. He told himself that it would distress Felin to no purpose, but in his heart he knew that it would cause his wife to distrust his sister, which would lead to an unhappy family situation for himself. “I know you will welcome her, and consider the extravagance of another servant one which we can endure,” he wrote, thinking that this was the best way of approaching the matter with his wife. “However, Exalt Benandi, who takes such an interest in the affairs of her domain, may not see likewise, and may interfere in a way which I would find intolerable. Therefore, hire an extra eight drafters to pull the three of us home from the Halt in the carriage. This is an extravagance, but it is one for which we can endure Exalt Benandi’s reproaches, while if Selendra flew and Amer walked behind, she should be sure to begin at once to believe that we could not afford another servant.” Penn knew, or believed he knew, how to manage his patroness. He had learned of such little deceptions or, as he preferred to consider them, misdirections from her son.
    “Let her know you have hired the drafters, and if you wish to, complain with her of my extravagance.” Thus Penn ordered his wife to be lectured, and permitted her, if she chose, to side with his patroness against him. He may