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with herself when she saw Selendra’s horrified expression. “Not quite as bad as that, no, not eating them alive but killing them to eat as if they were weakling dragonets.”
    “How terribly wasteful,” Selendra said. “No, it can’t be so, his parson wouldn’t allow it,” Selendra made her voice much more definite than she felt, to reassure the old servant as she quoted, “There must be no killing of dragons except after a challenge or in the presence of a parson, for the improvement of dragonkind—meaning the weakling dragonets, not a servant who isn’t as fast as she used to be.”
    “Parsons don’t see everything. There are corrupt parsons too, who might look away, and who’s to say the Illustrious Daverak doesn’t have one of those?” Amer looked imploringly at Selendra.
    “I’ll do whatever I can to persuade Penn to let you come with me,” Selendra said.
    Just then Avan came in, ducking his head to avoid the doorway.He had the beef slung across his arms. “I went out to bring back breakfast,” he said, smiling.
    “Oh bless you,” Selendra exclaimed. “I’ve let supplies get very low.”
    “No use getting it in for Berend,” Avan said.
    “That’s just what Amer was saying,” Selendra said. Avan gave Amer a look that warned he was by no means as indulgent with servants as his sisters. She ducked her head obediently and took the beef from him.
    “I met Blessed Frelt on my way,” Avan said. “He’s coming to pay a call on the family, he says. I have no idea what he wants—I thought we’d seen the last of him. I think father was right to quarrel with him, he’s such a prig.”
    “Well we can’t quarrel with him before breakfast,” Selendra said.
    “More’s the pity,” Avan said.
    Amer let a snort of laughter escape her at this. Avan frowned, and even Selendra looked at her reproachfully, as if to ask if this was how she would behave in the Blessed Penn’s house. Amer heeded the warning look and began jointing the beef neatly, saying nothing, keeping her place.
     
8. A PROPOSAL
    Selendra felt it necessary to go down to welcome Blessed Frelt. It so happened that this duty had never fallen to her before. When her father and Frelt were still upon good terms, before his ill-fated offer for Berend, Selendra had been a mere dragonet and Berend herself had always welcomed him. Since then his visits had been fewand formal, and he had either been shown in to Bon Agornin by Amer, as if he were a stranger, or even worse met with threats upon the threshold. “Amer, keep on with the breakfast, and make sure it is suitable for a visiting parson,” she said, sternly. “Avan, if you could inform Penn and Haner of our visitor I would take it kindly.” She then checked herself rapidly for stray spots of blood, brushed her front scales hastily, and hurried down towards the lower gate. Such were the preparations of the maiden Selendra as she went to receive her first proposal of marriage.
    Frelt was delighted to see Selendra bustling down to greet him. He had wondered a little, after Avan’s abrupt departure, if he might be treated as badly by the children as by the father. He had remembered Penn’s behavior to him the night before. Much as he hated it, he knew that if he wished to be on terms with the family he would have to admit that he was wrong. He had been unsure if he would be able to see Selendra at all. In the course of the night, he had convinced himself it was Selendra he wanted, and he now half-believed that he had been in love with her for some time. A farmer had shown him through the lower door, and he made his way slowly up through the narrow corridor, squeezing himself unpleasantly at times with some more concern for the burnish of his scales than might be thought appropriate for a parson. So when he saw Selendra coming down, the smile he gave her had much of genuine pleasure in it, along with a little of the pride that was his strongest quality.
    “Blessed Frelt, how may we