Joust (32 page)

“She’ll never be a Kashet,” Vetch stated, as he removed the last of the dragon’s harness, and the great beast gave himself a shake and stepped down into his wallow.

Ari laughed. “No. You’re right there. I’m afraid there will never be another Kashet.”

And with that, the Jouster gave Vetch a wink, and left.

Vetch hid his smile. There would never be another Kashet? Well, that remained to be seen.

 

And two days later, Coresan’s second egg appeared in the same corner as the first, though this time Vetch found it in the afternoon rather than the morning. Actually, the appearance of the egg surprised him; he would have thought that it would be more of an effort for her to lay such enormous objects.

With great relief, Vetch went straight to Haraket and reported it. Finally he was not going to have to worry about evading Haraket’s questions. Nor would he have to worry that the Overseer might begin to wonder
why
there weren’t any eggs. Mind, Haraket hadn’t shown any evidence of suspicion, but—well, Haraket wouldn’t necessarily
show
anything. The Overseer was very good at keeping his ideas to himself when he chose. Vetch would never want to play the stone game against him, for there would be no reading anything in Haraket’s face.

It took Vetch some time to actually track Haraket down; he wasn’t with the butchers, inspecting occupied pens, discussing the work of the boys with the harness maker, or any other place where Vetch expected to find him. Finally, after asking everyone he met, Vetch discovered the Overseer in a little room just off the kitchen. He was sequestered with the Steward of the Household, who was in charge of supplying all of the food and clothing needs for the Jousters and the considerable staff it took to support them. Te-Velethat, apparently, was not in charge of this most vital of duties. Te-Velethat, from a remark that Vetch overheard before he made his presence known, considered the procurement of supplies to be entirely beneath him as an Overseer, and left it all up to Haraket. Haraket, who was already handling the procurement of everything associated with the dragons, got saddled with this job as well.

And as a consequence, it seemed, Te-Velethat had a great deal less power and influence within the compound than he thought he had . . . which was a bit of information that Vetch filed away, just in case he needed it at some time in the future.

“An egg! Finally!” the Overseer grunted, once Vetch had apprised him of the situation. “I was beginning to worry that she might be egg-bound.”

“What would you like me to do, sir?” Vetch asked diffidently.

“Don’t do anything; I’ll handle this,” Haraket said firmly. “Now, go back to her, and don’t act any differently. Don’t pay any attention to that egg, because we don’t want her to have a go at you. She might, she might not, there’s no telling at the moment. You’ll have to leave her be, and if she acts possessive, leave her alone with it, just lengthen her chain and take a barrow of meat in to her and don’t bother any further with her. As a first-time breeder, chances are she won’t know what to do with it, but don’t take any chances if she shows the least little sign of getting protective.”

Vetch ducked his head. “Yes, sir,” he said obediently. “I’ll do that, but she didn’t even act as if she cared about it at all. The way she acted, it could just as well have been one of her droppings.”

“That could be a ruse, the way a plover plays broken-wing to lure you away,” Haraket warned, “But as long as she doesn’t think you know about it, she won’t do anything to draw attention to it. You’re too valuable for us to risk you getting injured by a broody she-dragon. I don’t want you hurt.”

“Yes, sir,” Vetch repeated, knowing already that Coresan wasn’t going to do anything about the second egg, since she hadn’t been at all possessive about the first. He was safe enough with her, and given her indifference, perhaps it was just as well that they weren’t going to give her the chance to be a mother.

Perhaps, though, he was doing her a disservice. Chickens didn’t pay any attention to their eggs until after the full clutch had been laid. There was no telling but what, once her instincts awoke, she wouldn’t have been a good mother after all.

And for a moment, he felt horribly guilty; here they were, taking her eggs from her, never giving her a chance to raise them. It didn’t seem at all fair.

If the gods had meant her to breed,
he told himself,
she’d have gotten away from Ari and Kashet and gone off into the hills. And she’d have found herself a handsome male and set herself right up, no doubt. What healthy dragon could have resisted such a scarlet beauty?
And he went back to his split duties, leaving Haraket and the Steward poring over tallies of wheat and barley.

He fed Coresan, then made sure that Coresan’s pen was as spotless and tidy as Kashet’s. If Haraket was going to arrive with a picked crew to purloin the egg, he wanted the pen to show just how diligent a worker he was. By the time he finished Coresan’s pen, it was time for Kashet and Ari to come back from their second patrol, so it was on to the next round, feeding Kashet, buffing and oiling him, then giving Coresan the same treatment, and that fourth little meal that would hold her overnight until late morning. In all that time, there was no sign of Haraket, and the egg was still in the corner of Coresan’s pen.

Then, just before going to bed himself, he slipped into the empty pen to turn his egg, as he had been doing for the past two mornings and nights.

When he went to feed Coresan the next morning, the egg was gone, so he guessed that Haraket had duplicated what he himself had done—taken the egg in the night, when Coresan was least likely to see and react to the theft of her potential progeny.

Ari lingered while Vetch unharnessed Kashet after the morning patrol, as if he was uncertain about something. Finally, though he made up his mind. “I thought you might like to know, Seftu’s rider, Horeb, is back on his patrols.”

“Ah?” Vetch said noncommittally. “So what came of his side of the mess, then?”

“First, a good long dressing-down from Haraket that practically pinned his ears back,” Ari said, with a grim little smile. “I suspect that didn’t impress him too much past the moment, but then he had an intense session with the Captain of Jousters, which of a certainty did. The Captain ordered an official inquiry and when that was over, he had an interview—” (Ari’s tone and expression put a certain decided emphasis on the word) “—with the Commander of Dragons. I saw him leave, actually; he looked like a whipped cur.”

“Is the Commander so fearsome?” Vetch asked wonderingly. This was the first time that he had heard of the Commander actually doing anything with the Jousters other than issuing orders.

“Oh, he’s worse, I do pledge you,” Ari said, “He does not hear excuses; we are weapons in his hand, and woe betide the weapon that fails. As a Commander of Hundreds expects each man to tend to his equipment and see that it is in top condition, the Commander of Dragons expects that we are to do the same with our beasts. It’s bad enough to face him when he’s giving you a commendation; it’s got to be a thousand times worse when he’s about take you apart. But the inquiry proved that Horeb was not as much to blame for the incident as Reaten was. Apparently Coresan had been proddy for the last week; Seftu only got interested when she went up in the air and he saw her start to display instead of obeying her rider.”

“Huh.” Sobek, of course, was just as guilty, but he’d already been punished to the extent that the arm of the Jousters reached, Vetch had to suppose. “So what’s to do with Reaten, then?”

Ari cleared his throat, and it sounded embarrassed. “Well, here, you see, I have a dilemma. What happened to Horeb is very much public knowledge. Plenty of underlings knew about the interviews, and plenty more saw him going into and out of all three of them. The result of the inquiry is also public knowledge. However, the same cannot be said of what’s to happen with Reaten. If I tell you, it’s gossip that the—ah—”

“Serfs, slaves, and servants aren’t supposed to know,” Vetch supplied, the words leaving a bitter taste behind as he spoke them.

But this was Ari—and Ari was not like anyone else. “True. This is not the sort of thing that should be gossiped about—”

He winked. It was a very sly wink. “Well, as you know, I could just be talking to myself, or to my dragon. In fact, I believe I will talk to my dragon,” was Ari’s response, and he looked up at Kashet, who craned his neck around to stare into his Jouster’s eyes, looking for all the world as if he wanted to hear this gossip himself. “Now, as for Reaten, when he recovers, it’s rumored—just rumored, mind—that his interview will be at the hands of the Royal Commander himself. Isn’t that fascinating, Kashet?”

The dragon snorted, as if he was skeptical of how much good a mere dressing-down would change Reaten’s ways.

“Really? On the whole, I would tend to agree with you, Kashet, given what I know about Reaten.” Oh, now Ari did look sly. “You see, Kashet, Reaten is noble, himself, and he seems to be under the impression that anyone of noble blood need not concern himself with orders and instructions. Fortunately I have it on more substantial authority that Reaten is going to be demoted back down to merest apprentice, no longer permitted to fly or fight until the end of the Floods. And that if the Great King didn’t need Jousters so badly, he’d be sent packing after his dragon boy. And furthermore, since the Royal Commander is of sufficient rank to cow anyone other than the Great King, he has decided that Reaten’s father is going to sit in on the dressing-down, just to give a bit of familial emphasis to it all.”

While Ari didn’t sound gleeful, there was no mistaking the satisfaction in his voice. “If you were to ask me, Kashet, I would say that the punishment is certainly fitting.”

And serve him right, too,
was Vetch’s conclusion. Anyone who hadn’t noticed that his dragon was looking to mate didn’t deserve to be a Jouster, and if he’d been depending on his dragon boy to tell him what Coresan’s condition was, he’d been completely a fool. He should have seen she was too thin, he should have immediately seen how restless she was and checked her over himself. Noble or not, when he undertook to become a Jouster, he took the same oaths to obey his superiors as any warrior or officer, and that meant
every
order,
every
rule, not just the ones that suited him. If he felt taking proper care of his dragon was beneath him, well, he should have just resigned and gone off to serve as an officer or something in the regular army.

And through his foolishness and Horeb’s—the latter not having the good sense to notice when his he-dragon had begun a courtship flight!—Tia had nearly lost two Jousters and two dragons. That they hadn’t, had been a miracle, due in no small part to Ari—who had been “rewarded” for his wisdom and skill by taking on the duties of Reaten and himself combined.

Well, that wasn’t entirely true, as he learned that very afternoon.

“Well,” Haraket said very quietly as Vetch obtained Coresan’s dinner, “Your Jouster’s done it again.”

“Done what again?” Vetch asked, his eyebrows puckering in confusion. Surely Haraket didn’t know how much about Horeb and Reaten that Ari had told him. . . .

“He didn’t tell you? Huh. Well, I’m not surprised.” Haraket sighed. “He’s been given quite a bit of recognition, in a ceremony last night. He’s attracted the attention and the notice of the greatest and most powerful in the land, Vetch, and not for the first time. Ari was awarded the Gold of Honor at the hands of the Great King himself, two armlets and a full broad collar.”

Vetch blinked. “He got a ceremony? By himself?” was all he could think of to say. If the Great King had held the Gold of Honor ceremony
just
for Ari— well, it was certain that Ari wouldn’t be a mere Jouster much longer.

And then what would happen to Vetch and his plans?

“Well, no,” Haraket admitted. “There were something like forty others. But still! Two armlets and a collar! Everyone else, or nearly, got just bees or armlets, and only one other person got more than Ari did, and
he
was a Commander of Hundreds. And do you
know
what he did with them?”

Vetch shook his head, but he already knew he was going to find out. He could tell from the vehemence that Haraket was showing that the Overseer was only using Vetch’s presence as an excuse to vent his own exasperation. Though why he should be exasperated about Ari getting a great honor, Vetch could not imagine.

“I’ll tell you what he did! He dropped all three of them in his clothes’ chest, like—like an old kilt! The slave that cleans his rooms found them there, and I had to come and take them away to lock up for him! And what’s more,” Haraket continued in disbelief, “He did the same with the other awards he’s won. They were all in there, packed up as if they were unsuitable presents from an inconvenient relative! Anybody would think he didn’t care!”

It was perfectly clear to Vetch at this point that Haraket was both partly pleased because Ari was not puffed up by the awards, and exasperated that he seemed to count them of so little worth.

Vetch made sympathetic noises, but he didn’t understand Ari’s attitude either—

Yet somehow, it felt right. If Ari had been the type to search after the attention of the mighty, well—

—he wouldn’t have been Ari.