Joust (22 page)

He stepped back a pace, and held up his little whip. “Therefore, in the name of the Great King, I decree that there shall be a transfer of attachment. This serf is no longer bound to the house and land of his bloodline, and Khefti the brick maker now owns these properties outright, to do with as he pleases.”

Khefti was not given time to react to this, for the magistrate followed this pronouncement with another.

“And since he has declared he cannot sustain his
tala
field without the labor of the serf, in the name of the Great King, I bind this same serf boy to the
tala
field formerly owned by Khefti the brick maker, and take this property into the hands of the Great King’s overseers, to be administered by them on behalf of the Great King and his Jousters.” The magistrate’s smile widened as Khefti’s cry of pleasure turned to a gasp of loss and dismay, and Vetch was reminded irresistibly of a crocodile. . . .

A crocodile that has just swallowed a large and particularly tasty meal. “The Great King has simple serfs in plenty to tend this field, and it will be efficient for the
tala
to come directly into the hands of the Great King rather than through an intermediary.”

Efficient? Hah! It means the
tala
will come to the Great King for nothing, save only the labor of a serf or slave!
Vetch was dazzled by the beauty of it all; the scribe had surely told the magistrate that Khefti’s
tala
field was—as simple property—worth less than the house and land stolen from Vetch’s family. So Khefti could not even protest that he was being cheated—he now owned that house and garden, rather than merely holding them, a right which could have been revoked at any time. He could sell them at a profit, he could do anything with them that he chose. But the value of the
tala
that had come and would come in the future from that tiny field would far exceed that of the property now given to him, and Khefti very well knew it. There would be no more duck on Khefti’s table, no more palm wine, no more little luxuries. And the Great King would have the yield of one more
tala
field without the need to pay for it.

“And meanwhile,” the magistrate concluded, “this serf, who clearly cannot be spared, will be permanently assigned to the Jouster’s Compound in the service of Jouster Ari and his dragon.”

Khefti whimpered, and dropped to his knees, as the magistrate moved his whip out from his chest, until his arm was completely outstretched, in the ritual motion that signified that the judgment had been passed and there was no use in protesting it. “So let it be written,” he intoned. “So let it be done.”

Ari and Haraket bowed as the magistrate turned to the side and strode out of the hall, his scribe in close attendance. Khefti remained where he was, his face a study in tragedy; Ari signaled to Vetch with a sideways nod of his head, and he and Vetch turned and moved out of the hall again, with Kashet pacing happily between them. The dragon seemed to understand that something good had just happened, and that it was due to something he had done. He arched his neck, and his eyes sparkled; he carried his tail high and his wings half-furled over his shoulders.

Vetch was nearly beside himself with joy. No one could possibly have devised a more perfect revenge! Why, this could be the manifestation of Vetch’s own curse! Surely Khefti’s food would be as thistles in his mouth, and his belly cramp as if it were pierced with thorns on a daily basis! All of his own ploys had been turned as weapons against him! He had lost, lost the income from the
tala
field that kept him in luxuries, lost the services of Vetch which had cost him nothing (and now would probably have to hire a servant or buy a slave to take care of the things that Vetch used to), lost the
tala
field itself, and would have to look upon it
every single day
as the serfs or slaves of the Great King tended it in Vetch’s place! And all because of the words out of his very own mouth, because of his own actions! Vetch skipped along beside Kashet, feeling as if it was he, and not the dragon, that had the wings.

“Well, are you satisfied?” Ari asked, when they were several corridors away, amusement in his voice.

“Yes!” was all that Vetch could get out around the happiness that tightened his chest.

“Good.” Ari patted Kashet’s shoulder. “It’s nearly time for Kashet’s last feeding. Get him a basket of hearts, will you?”

And with that, he left from the two of them, heading back toward his own quarters in the pouring rain. Kashet hesitated, looking after him for a moment.

“Dinner, Kashet,” Vetch reminded the dragon, soothingly. That was all it took. Once again, he had to run to keep up. But it was a run that he was happy to make.

 

Ari did not come to the pen that night—not that Vetch blamed him, for the rain continued to come down until long after darkness fell, and it would have been a miserable journey. Vetch fell asleep on his pallet in Kashet’s wallow, with the dragon an arm’s length away, both of them basking in the warmth. But the next day, although the skies did not clear very much, the rain stopped, and Ari arrived in the afternoon.

The Jousters still did not fly, for it was all too possible for them to come to grief in the uncertain winds around the storms, or to be struck by lightning. So Ari arrived after Kashet’s second feeding, wrapped in his woolen mantle against the cold, and sat down to bury his feet in the hot sand.

“This is better than any brazier,” he said contentedly. “I always spend a lot of time here with Kashet in the rains.”

He looked over to the far end of the wallow, where Vetch’s pallet still lay, and nodded with approval. “Very smart. My last dragon boy was too afraid of Kashet to move his bed where it was warmer; I could never understand that. If the dignity of a Jouster permitted it, I’d sleep here every night of the winter, and not in my quarters. Every rainy season I find myself regretting that I am a Jouster, and not tending my hatchling anymore.” He turned his gaze toward Vetch and smiled apologetically. “I’m afraid I have to ask you to go tidy my rooms while I’m here of an afternoon. Otherwise Te-Velethat will be angry with you for shirking your duties, and the other Jousters will be angry with me for not insisting that you do them.”

Vetch read a world of implications in those few words—as he was probably meant to. The others would, of course, have heard all about Khefti and the magistrate. Initially, of course, they would have been outraged that a mere brick maker dared to set himself against a Jouster, and they would have been pleased at Khefti’s thorough trouncing. But then, once they’d had a chance to mull it all over, some of them would be sure that this incident would “spoil” Vetch, or that Ari was overindulging him. Bad enough in a free Tian boy—but not to be thought of in a serf. Anyone in the compound who had their doubts about Ari’s choice of dragon boy would be watching Vetch as a falcon watched a bird, and they would be just as ready to pounce on any suspicion of poor performance.

Vetch jumped to his feet as suddenly as if he had sat on a wasp. “Of course, sir!” he exclaimed. At this point, after the scene in the Dragon Hall yesterday, if Ari had asked him to fling himself into a crocodile’s jaws, he probably would have done it joyfully. Well, perhaps not joyfully, but he wouldn’t have hesitated.

He ran off without another word, and as usual, found that there really was not a great deal to do except that his usual chore of sweeping out had turned to one of mopping out—cleaning up the mud that had been tracked everywhere.

Given that he was being watched, he elected to clean the mud out of the courtyard as well, even though that wasn’t technically his task. Not that it was a quarter as much work as the same task had been for Khefti-the-Fat . . . and Vetch grinned the whole time he was doing the job, startling the life out of Te-Velethat, who looked in to see that he was there and doing his job. He was picturing Khefti doing the job for himself, for surely he had not yet managed to hire a servant nor buy a slave.

No, the wages he’ll offer will be too small by half, and no one will take them,
Vetch thought gleefully.
And the price he’ll be willing to pay for a slave won’t get him anything. He’ll have to wait until some dealer comes by with a lot of slaves that nobody else wants, and even then, he’ll end up paying twice what he wants to.

The picture of Khefti with a mop was so delicious that he undertook to move every stick of furniture and clean under and behind it, startling Te-Velethat when he came, once again, to check on Vetch’s progress. Vetch didn’t care what the Overseer thought, so long as he was impressed with Vetch’s diligence.

Nothing could spoil his pleasure today, nor for many days to come. Khefti-the-Fat had brought Vetch’s curses down on his own head with the words of his own mouth.

Life was very, very good.

A
FTER that first afternoon, Ari spent time with Kashet—and indirectly, with Vetch—nearly every afternoon during the rains. The mornings, though, proceeded nearly as they had during the dry; mornings were spent in training flights, if there was no wind and no storm directly overhead. If the rain was going to stop at all, it usually did so during the hours of the morning, and training was vital for the dragons, no matter what season it was. They needed practice even though they weren’t fighting, as did all warriors, but more than that, in the rains, when it was impossible for armies to move and difficult for even individual fighters, the dragons needed exercise. In the wild, dragons would be going about their business, hunting, mating, teaching their young the business of being the largest predator in the hills. Dragons in the compound didn’t need to do any of those things. Their meals were brought to them, they were prevented from mating; therefore, at all times, but especially in the rains when they were confined to the area around the compound, they had to fly and get plenty of vigorous exercise, or they would get fat, spoiled, and stale.

Now, the dragons themselves were not at all in favor of this. They saw no reason to bestir themselves. Like Kashet, they hated the rain and the cold, and there was a lot of protesting from the pens as they were led out to the landing court in the morning. Kashet protested, too, but it was mostly a token.

“He takes forever to get up in the morning,” Vetch noted one morning, near the end of the rainy season.

“But once I get him up, he doesn’t hiss and moan about flying off the way the others do. The others—you’d think they were going off to be whipped!”

“He enjoys the training,” Ari explained. “He likes the training a lot more than the patrolling.”

Or the fighting?
Vetch wondered. Well, Kashet would truly enjoy himself for some time, then. Spring and the Flood were not far off; already the Haph priests were going down to the measuring stone three times daily, to see if the waters had begun to rise. No less than the season of rains, the season of flood was one in which it was difficult for armies and individuals to move about. And Kashet would surely enjoy the fact that the days would soon be getting longer and warmer, and the rains would stop.

Ari was giving Kashet’s eye ridges a good scratch, unaware of Vetch’s thoughts. “He likes the kinds of things that we do in training, and he always has.”

“He probably likes being able to outfly any other dragon,” Vetch observed, as he buckled a chest strap. Ari laughed.

“He probably does,” the Jouster agreed. “Now, I wonder what the morning holds for us—” Ari lifted his head and took a deep breath, testing the air like a hound; he was almost as good as a priest for being able to predict weather in the short-term. “No scent of rain; we should be all right and get the full morning to work out in. Are the other boys leaving you alone?”

Vetch was getting used to Ari’s sudden changes in subject, though not quite used to Ari’s personal interest in him. He ducked his head to avoid looking into the Jouster’s eyes. “I’m all right,” he said softly. “They don’t bother me.”

“But they don’t make friends with you either.”

Vetch shrugged, as if he felt nothing more than indifference, but that was a third thing that he wasn’t used to—Ari’s uncanny ability to know pretty much what was going on in his life. “It doesn’t matter as long as they don’t bother me,” he said firmly.

“Vetch, look at me,” Ari ordered.

Feeling distinctly uncomfortable now, Vetch stopped what he was doing and obeyed the order. Ari had a very sharp, very direct gaze; those dark eyes seemed to look through everything. Ari’s mouth thinned; it wasn’t quite a frown, but it was clear to Vetch that he was not entirely happy.

When Ari had begun showing this—interest—in him, Vetch had been nervous. But Ari had never displayed anything but concern for his welfare—as if he felt responsible for Vetch in some way. Vetch still didn’t understand it, and he still wasn’t comfortable with the attention, but that was mostly because he just didn’t like telling anyone as much about himself as Ari wanted to know. There was no reason for a Tian to want to know a serf’s inner thoughts! Everything he had learned about the masters made him very nervous when they started probing. And even if Ari had never once been less than fair with him, it still made him nervous when it was Ari.

“You have no friends among them, and that disturbs me.” Now Ari frowned faintly. “It isn’t right; even
I
had a few friends when I was your age, and not just among the other scribes. You shouldn’t be so alone.”

“I’m not alone. I have Kashet,” Vetch replied, trying to sound as if he was perfectly happy with the situation. “I didn’t have any friends when Khefti was my master, and his apprentices, the boys I had to work around, were always trying nasty tricks on me. It’s much better here; no one dares do anything to me, especially after what happened to Khefti. Maybe they don’t think I’m the proper rank to be allowed to be a dragon boy, but they can’t do anything about that as long as Haraket is satisfied. And as long as you are.”