“You don’t want to go inside the reach of his chain.”

Silence fell, and then the men spoke in low voices. Selden didn’t move. That they were discussing him didn’t interest him in the least. He’d lost the ability to feel embarrassed or even humiliated. He still missed clothing, badly, but mainly because he was cold. Sometimes, between shows, they would toss him a blanket, but as often as not they forgot. Few of those who tended him spoke his language, so begging for one did him no good. Slowly it came to his feverish brain that it was unusual that the two men discussing him were speaking a language he knew. Chalcedean. His father’s tongue, learned in a failed effort to impress his father. He did not move or give them any sign that he was aware of them, but began to listen more closely.

“Hey! Hey, you. Dragon boy! Stand up. Give the man a look at you.”

He could ignore them. Then, like as not, they would throw something at him to make him move. Or they would begin to turn the winch that tightened the chain on his ankle. He’d either have to walk to the back wall or be dragged there. His captors feared him and ignored his claims to be human. They always tightened his chain when they came in to rake out the straw that covered the floor of his stall. He sighed and uncoiled his body and came slowly to his feet.

One of the men gasped. “He is tall! Look at the length of his legs! Does he have a tail?”

“No. No tail. But he’s scaled all over. Glitters like diamonds if you take him out in the daylight.”

“So bring him out. Let me see him in the light.”

“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.”