he had used three hundred years before to purchase the estate of Agornin and the title ofDignified, had been made in ways those dignified, illustrious, exalted, august, and eminent personages we have chosen to make lords among us lump together and dismiss in a word as “trade.” True, Bon had shaken off these associations as soon as he could. He had used them to climb and achieve position in the world and, once he had achieved the position he desired, had dabbled in them no more. He had purchased his establishment, married his ill-dowried but indubitably gently born bride, and proceeded thenceforth to amass wealth and improve his estate through honest farming. All the same, through the succeeding centuries the stench of trade had clung around him a little. Much though he might speak of his youth on the Telstie estate with his widowed mother, and of his estate of Agornin, never mentioning the intervening period, there remained something of the city about him. The cities, as hardly needs to be mentioned, are anathema to all right-thinking dragons, except only for Irieth, and Irieth only when the Noble Assembly is sitting, or in the months of Budding and Flowering in those years, very rare of late, when the Noble Assembly shall hold no session.
This shadow of the city was but rarely apparent in his Dignified years, and it had cast but little reflection upon his children. Illustrious Daverak had considered it for a moment while courting Berend, but had soothed his conscience with the memory of her mother, who had been a Fidrak, which, though the family was now sadly impoverished, meant that her ancestors had held their acres since before the Conquest. Penn, in the Church, had prospered on his own accomplishments and the patronage of his friends, in particular the Exalted Sher Benandi and his mother the Exalt Zile Benandi. The younger maidens had as yet not made their way in the world at all, but had hitherto not anticipated much difficulty following Berend into good marriages. As for Avan, how he presentedhimself at home and what he did at Irieth were rather different, as we shall see.
At Undertor, the only visible sign of old Bon’s earlier ventures into trade was the railway, which cut across a corner of Agornin land. It was a corner distant from the establishment, and in no way blocked or spoiled any prospects which any dragon would especially wish to view. Indeed, the land where it now ran had always been marshy and good for nothing. The railway engineers had, in putting it in, drained the land and freed up a field or two next to the line for farming, of which Bon made good use by running drafters. These drafters would become slowly accustomed to the noise of the passing trains and could then be sold into the cities as bustle-hardened, raising their value greatly.
There had been a great commotion in the district when the railway had been proposed, and some of the neighboring Dignifieds had quarrelled, or tried to quarrel, with Bon Agornin for allowing it to blight the countryside. Bon’s commercial past was remembered when he took the gold from the railway company. If Bon had not agreed, the railway must have taken a very different course and stayed far away from Undertor altogether. By allowing it to run through this neglected corner of his land Bon made freight flow through directly from the mines of Tolga to Irieth, not to mention speeding the mails considerably and incidentally providing transportation for any dragons who, through heavy burdens, through age or infirmity, or because they were traveling with dragonets or parsons or servants, might not wish to fly where they were going.
Bon Agornin had insisted, when he leased the land to the railway, on having a station put on it. “It will be useful for Penn,” he said. Penn then had already been in training for that most respectable of professions, the Church. In general the station was mostly used by the local farmers to send fresh russets and pippinsup to the
This shadow of the city was but rarely apparent in his Dignified years, and it had cast but little reflection upon his children. Illustrious Daverak had considered it for a moment while courting Berend, but had soothed his conscience with the memory of her mother, who had been a Fidrak, which, though the family was now sadly impoverished, meant that her ancestors had held their acres since before the Conquest. Penn, in the Church, had prospered on his own accomplishments and the patronage of his friends, in particular the Exalted Sher Benandi and his mother the Exalt Zile Benandi. The younger maidens had as yet not made their way in the world at all, but had hitherto not anticipated much difficulty following Berend into good marriages. As for Avan, how he presentedhimself at home and what he did at Irieth were rather different, as we shall see.
At Undertor, the only visible sign of old Bon’s earlier ventures into trade was the railway, which cut across a corner of Agornin land. It was a corner distant from the establishment, and in no way blocked or spoiled any prospects which any dragon would especially wish to view. Indeed, the land where it now ran had always been marshy and good for nothing. The railway engineers had, in putting it in, drained the land and freed up a field or two next to the line for farming, of which Bon made good use by running drafters. These drafters would become slowly accustomed to the noise of the passing trains and could then be sold into the cities as bustle-hardened, raising their value greatly.
There had been a great commotion in the district when the railway had been proposed, and some of the neighboring Dignifieds had quarrelled, or tried to quarrel, with Bon Agornin for allowing it to blight the countryside. Bon’s commercial past was remembered when he took the gold from the railway company. If Bon had not agreed, the railway must have taken a very different course and stayed far away from Undertor altogether. By allowing it to run through this neglected corner of his land Bon made freight flow through directly from the mines of Tolga to Irieth, not to mention speeding the mails considerably and incidentally providing transportation for any dragons who, through heavy burdens, through age or infirmity, or because they were traveling with dragonets or parsons or servants, might not wish to fly where they were going.
Bon Agornin had insisted, when he leased the land to the railway, on having a station put on it. “It will be useful for Penn,” he said. Penn then had already been in training for that most respectable of professions, the Church. In general the station was mostly used by the local farmers to send fresh russets and pippinsup to the
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