Page 36 of Dragons of the Great Wyves: Fire and Song
A shadow arrived, blocking the light on the condensing lens, and the eyepiece dimmed. Just as well; I was tired of squinting. I tucked back my dangling hair and hooked my spectacles over my ears. The shadow resolved into two people: Georgiana and young Thomas Digweed, who was thoroughly recovered. Lucy’s request to visit him seemed to have been for celebration, not care.
“You are using the microscope!” Georgiana declared, charmed that I had raided her belongings. It had been on a shelf overflowing with palm-sized lenses of crown and flint glass, concave mirrors, and brass mounting loops. Telescope optics.
“Dr. Davenport taught me to use one.” He had demonstrated several mind-boggling views—consumptive tubercles, and red blood cells clotting before myeyes—then grumbled that most doctors considered magnification a useless novelty.
“What are you looking at?” Georgiana asked, her nose inches from the specimen tray. Thomas looked from the other side.
“A foul crawler,” I said, and Georgiana recoiled. “Or the immature grub of one. It is from the plums.” The plum orchard infection had been obvious, the fruit distended and overlarge for May.
Georgiana looked concerned, so I added, “It is thoroughly killed. I soaked it with camphor and alcohol.”
“I am not afraid of it,” she said. “I amdisgustedby it. Must you… pick it apart?”
I was brandishing a hatpin to lever up a length of hardened shell, what would be the elytron in a beetle. “Look. Wings.”
That made her frown. “Crawlers do not have wings.”
“This would, if it hatched.” To Thomas—who seemed fascinated—I said, “Did you succeed?”
“Yes, ma’am.” He held up the small wicker box I had given him. “I collected them from the broad beans. My father wants to know if we should burn the field now?”
“Not yet. That field will be our exhibit.” I took the box to the window and angled it, peering through the mesh as spots of sun penetrated. Nothing unpleasant had emerged, so I opened it. There were two long beans, even more grossly swollen than the plums. They flexed slightly where the sun touched them. “Good. Still alive.” With tweezers, I moved each into a separate glass jar.
“Disgusting,” Georgiana repeated. “Could you not raise puppies instead?”
“I want to find a way to kill them without burning crops.” I covered one jar with a copper lid punched with tiny airholes, then opened a flask of draca essence. “The Loch bairn journal refers to essence as a treatment for crawler stings, but another passage suggests it is repellant to crawlers themselves, or even toxic…”
Georgiana was unconvinced. “We do not have enough essence to douse a field.”
“It is an experiment. It is not only our fields. The army is being attacked by huge crawlers. We need options.”
I dipped a piece of straw and dripped draca essence onto the second swollen bean. The pod throbbed with disturbing vigor, so I hastily covered the jar with another metal lid. We all crouched down to watch.
The treated bean settled and lay still.
“Is it dead?” Thomas asked.
“We must wait and see.” I secured both metal lids with twine, tucked in a note to mark the treated jar, and set the jars on a shelf. “Either way, we will learn what comes out.”
The infestedbroad beans filled a sloping, odd-shaped tenth acre, densely sown and intended for pig fodder. The plants had grown into a morass of tangled green as tall as my waist, and a bitter reek underlaid the healthy, earthy scent from recent rain. That aside, the day was pleasant. The burns at the other fields were finished, and the fouled sky had cleared to blue.
Georgiana and I tethered our horses to a hazel shrub near the field’s edge. The song draca had followed us from the mansion, circling and calling. He flitted to the top of a bush a few paces from me, his scaled muzzle cocked while his bright eyes watched expectantly.
“Not now,” I told him. He whistled, mimicking the tune of my words. I had never taught him a song for “go away,” so I flapped a hand at him until, affronted, he soared up to perch in a cedar overlooking the field. He chittered urgently. Even that sounded musical.
“Here they come,” Georgiana said. “All of them.”
A party on horseback rounded the bend, three well-dressed gentlemen I did not know escorted by Mr. Digweed. A good beginning. I had not been sure Mrs. Reynolds’ network of housekeepers would convince them.
The three men dismounted and greeted Georgiana warmly, the two older men fond as fathers. When that friendly exchange finished, glances drifted my way.
Georgiana said simply, “Miss Bennet.” With both my older sisters wed, I no longer required “Mary” in introductions. This would be the pinnacle of my social status: the eldest unmarried sister.
The first gentleman, Mr. Berrycloth, bowed to my curtsy, his ruddy cheeks framed by graying side-whiskers as stiff as brushes. He pursed meaty lips and looked me over with the unrushed curiosity of a wealthy, old man. Or was it dislike? I suppressed an urge to sneak a look at Georgiana and gauge her reaction.
These gentlemen might be strangers to me, but Bennet sisters weresurrounded by rumors. Lizzy’s binding of a dragon was tacit knowledge in this area, although her apparent death and the Darcys’ influence had kept the news from spreading. Jane and her golden wyvern, although living quietly in Hertfordshire, marshaled a share of envy and mystery as well.
Mr. Berrycloth finished his assessment with a baffled look at my limp, hanging hair. It had not occurred to me to put it up, but it was too late to pander to convention now.
