And it was such a relief to be able to abuse one of those wretched Tian boys without fear of being punished for it! Vetch waxed eloquent in his scorn. “Sobek never treated her properly; half the time he was afraid of her, and he never thought she was anything better than a dumb beast with a vicious streak. He never saw how clever she was, or treated her with any kindness. I’d have snapped at him myself, if I had been her; she’s smart enough to bully anyone who gives way to her, but she’s also smart enough to change her ways if she’s treated right.”
Haraket rubbed his shaven head with the palm of one hand, now looking worried. “Sobek was—not entirely in the wrong, boy,” he admitted. “Perhaps he neglected his dragon, but that will make her all the more dangerous. Coresan could harm you, if you are not careful.”
“Let me feed her, feed her now, Overseer,” Vetch pleaded, urgently. The plan was rapidly forming in his mind, a beautiful plan that would give him everything he could possibly want, but he could only carry it out if he became Coresan’s keeper, at least until she laid those eggs. “She’s hungry now, and she’ll be easier to win when she’s hungry. Please! Watch and see if I can handle her!”
Haraket took a deep breath, and Vetch felt a surge of triumph, knowing he had won—at least so far. “Very well. You may feed her, but I and my helpers will be standing by to guard you. Ari will never forgive me if I let any harm come to you. We will see—”
Vetch did not wait for Haraket to have second thoughts. Haraket left to get help, while he seized a barrow, got it loaded with meat, and was out into the corridor before anyone could blink, his own footfalls making the walls echo as he ran—but not, like Sobek, for the outside world. He had a chance; he had to make the most of it. Unlike Sobek, he had nowhere to go, nothing to lose, and the world to gain if he succeeded. . . .
Haraket and two of the biggest of his slaves, trailing a curious and apprehensive crowd of dragon boys, intercepted him on the way to Coresan’s pen. He was wheeling a barrow heaped with tala-treated meat, as much as he could manage, and double the ration that he usually gave Kashet. If Coresan was breeding, she’d be hungrier than usual even given the exertion of the mating flight as her body demanded the wherewithal to make eggs, and if Sobek had been neglecting her because he was afraid of her and impatient to get away, he might not have been feeding her properly for some time—and she’d be hungrier still. The way to a dragon’s heart was ever through her stomach. There was no reason, no reason whatsoever, why he should not feed her to bursting. She wouldn’t be flying any time soon—she would be making eggs. Why not stuff her, and soothe her with food?
Besides all of that, with a double ration of meat would come a double ration of tala, which, once it got into her, would gentle her even in her aroused state. With all of Ari’s instruction, he knew what tala did. If he could get her to allow him to lay nurturing hands on her, with a full belly that he had supplied, and the tranquilizing effect of the drug making her see things in a pleasant light—
He would create a mighty contrast to Sobek, and it would be right in the forefront of her mind—
Well, he might truly tame her. She would never be a Kashet, but she might become one of the better dragons.
He heard her hissing before he even reached her pen, and looking up, saw her head up above the walls, watching the corridor, swaying back and forth at the end of her long neck.
She was gorgeous; if she hadn’t been so angry, he’d have been able to appreciate her beauty more. Her color was a deep ruby, shading at the extremities and along the vanes of her wings to a turquoise-blue. But her scales looked dull, as if there was a haze of dust over them, and that made him frown.
She ignored him—except for a voracious glare down at his laden barrow. He was not Sobek; she did not expect feeding from him.
But when he appeared in the door of her pen with his barrow heaped with fresh, red meat, she reared up, her hiss of anger turning to a short bark of surprise. Then she went into a lunge that came up far short of where he stood, her chain snapping taut between her collar and the wall.
She was ravenous, and Vetch gritted his teeth when he realized that she was thin—not unhealthy, not yet, but that miserable excuse for a dragon boy Sobek truly hadn’t been feeding her nearly enough, just as he’d suspected! Hadn’t he seen how much hungrier she was?
Hadn’t her Jouster?
Like Jouster, like dragon boy, it seemed; Sobek and Reaten deserved each other, for neither of them had noticed the changes in Coresan. Seftu’s rider was evidently nearly as much in the wrong. As Ari had said, none of the trouble of this morning would have happened, if they had only been paying proper attention to their dragons!
Vetch didn’t leave the poor thing straining at the end of her tether for any longer than it took him to get up beside the barrow and begin tossing the biggest chunks of meat in it in her direction. She was quick; she saw the first one coming and snatched it right out of the air, snaked her head around to catch the second, and the third—
She paused to swallow; he kept the meat coming. Only when the barrow was half empty did she pause, for a breath, then to turn her head to take a good long drink from her trough.
While she was drinking, he moved the barrow nearer her, and perforce, himself; when she looked up, the barrow was well within her reach, and Vetch stood behind it, making sounds that Kashet found soothing, a kind of “pish, pish” noise.
Now the tala that had been dusted over the meat she’d bolted had begun to take effect, taking the edge off her aggressiveness and the anger that must have been born of hunger. Oh, he understood that, all too well! He felt a surge of sympathy for her. He would see to it that she never had another hungry day in her life!
She had eaten as much as she usually did, too, and although she was still hungry, she was no longer ravenous, and her mood had mellowed considerably. She arched her back and her neck, and eyed him with a great deal more favor.
“Come, my beauty,” he said to her, in a soft and coaxing voice. “See what I’ve brought you? There will be plenty of meat for you from now on, if you can be a good girl for me. I understand how you must be feeling! I know how much an empty belly hurts!”
Evidently she could, when she chose, move her head as fast as that whippy tail. She snaked her head at him with a lightning-strike, and snapped a pair of jaws that could have taken off his head—
If his head had been what she was aiming for.
The jaws clashed a good foot above his head. He never moved. She was trying to see if he rattled as easily as Sobek; if he flinched, she’d bully him at every possible opportunity. He’d seen her with Sobek at the grooming compound, where she looked at him out of the corner of her eye and lashed her tail at him, and he would jump and wince and insist that slaves put extra tethers on her. She reminded him of a goat on one of his masters’ farms, who’d done the same to her herders until she got one who’d given her a good rap across the nose with his crook the first time she charged him.
“Come along, my beauty,” he coaxed. “I’m tough and stringy. There’s better fare for you in my barrow, if you’re good.”
She eyed him again, then abruptly buried her muzzle in the meat, and didn’t stop until she’d eaten every morsel and licked the barrow clean. Only then did she raise her head and gaze at him with eyes that blinked with satiation and just a touch of sleepiness. So the tala was beginning to take hold. Good.
“There’s a good girl,” he told her, and taking the chance that the tala was coursing through her veins, further tranquilizing her, he moved down and loosened her chain from the wall. “Come on,” he said, tugging at the chain. “I know you want a good bath, and a proper oiling, don’t you? That wretched Sobek can’t have given you one in an age.”
She was more restive by far than Kashet, and never had Vetch felt the differences more keenly. And she kept snapping at the air above Vetch’s head, as if she wanted to express irritation and anger, but not truly at him. She still allowed him to lead her to the grooming
court without too much fuss.
Perhaps it was her bulging belly that was leading her . . . or just perhaps, in the depths of that odd mind, she was making comparisons between him and her former keeper, and deciding that she liked the change.
He fastened her to the nearest ring in the wall, and began buffing and oiling her. Flakes of dead skin fell away from the crevices of her wings as he rubbed, confirming his guess that Sobek hadn’t been tending her properly. And she responded to his careful ministrations, slowly, but favorably, finally bending her head to permit him to tend to the delicate skin of her ears, her muzzle, and around her eyes. In fact, he felt her muscles relaxing under his hands, until at last she was allowing him to tend to even the most sensitive and ticklish places with her eyes closed and the breath coming quietly from her flaring nostrils. Now her scales glowed with the color of fine gems as they should have.
When he led her back to her pen, she ambled along quietly beside him, and dove into the sand pit to wallow as soon as they reached it. He chained her up—she was still no Kashet, and he wasn’t going to trust to this good behavior until he knew how big a dose of tala he really needed to keep her tractable—but he gave her a much longer chain than ever Sobek had. She could reach every spot of her pen now; she just couldn’t get out of it or fly off. She could bury herself in her hot sand, and roll and wallow, without the chain bringing her up short and making her uncomfortable.
Haraket had followed him every step of the way; as he left her to her nap in the warm sand and turned to leave the pen, Haraket gave him an approving slap on his back that staggered him.
“Well done!” the Overseer said gruffly. “You do know your business. You tend your Kashet and this virago; that’s enough work for any man or boy. I’ll see to it that your other tasks are taken care of.”
Vetch ducked his head, and murmured his thanks, then headed back to the butchery to get Kashet’s ration and his treat, for if ever a dragon deserved special tending today, it was Kashet. This would not be easy; Coresan was going to test him every single time he entered her pen. She was intelligent and crafty, and she had learned how to disobey. Disobedience was a habit it would be hard to break her of.
But if all went well—she would lay her eggs on his watch, and he would have every possible opportunity to spirit one away, if anyone could.
And then Vetch would have a dragon egg. And after that, well—then it would all depend on the gods of Alta, and whether here, in the heart of Tia, they would be strong enough to aid him. One step at a time; that was all he dared think about. For now—wait for the eggs. Then see.
TEN
WITHIN hours, Vetch found himself in an interesting position; no one envied him, but he was no longer the target of scorn either. In fact, some of the other dragon boys began to look at him as if they did not quite believe anyone was mad enough to do what he was doing. Curiously enough, it was the oldest boys who gave him the most respect. Maybe that was because they had the most experience with dragons; they knew what it was he had volunteered to do, and how much work it would be.
Others, however, if they did not scorn him, did not love him for what he had done either. Sobek might not have been universally beloved, and he certainly had brought his downfall upon himself, but those boys that had been his friends took it ill that Vetch should dare to take his place, dare to outdo him, even. A mere serf, lower even than a slave, had not only been accepted as a dragon boy, but had the audacity to claim that he could care for a difficult dragon better than a freeborn Tian? And to have the gall to say, in so many words, that the freeborn Tian had not been caring for the dragon properly in the first place? It was an insult that they took poorly, and never mind any doubts that might be creeping into their minds about Sobek’s performance. Now they would never voice those doubts.
He consoled himself with the knowledge that at least none of them were looking at him as if he was some sort of insect anymore. Nor did they ignore him. And if he got black looks of resentment, he also got respect.
And it could have been worse, oh, very much worse than suspicious or worried looks and whispers. No one ventured to suggest that Vetch had somehow engineered all of this—which, had he been an adult instead of a child, could well have happened, and how would he defend himself against a charge that could neither be proved nor disproved?
That very thought was in his mind as he led a now-relaxed Coresan back to her pen, when he saw the odd pair of boys watching him and whispering to each other.
He’d seen just such a thing happen when the first new Tian overlord had taken the farm, back when he was still with his mother, grandmother, and sisters, slaving on what had been their own land. One of the village girls attracted the eye of a Tian officer and rebuffed him. She had taken care to avoid him when he showed that he was disinclined to take “no” as an answer. She was no landowner, and the idea that a young maiden could “attack” a Tian officer was absurd, so he had taken his revenge in some other way. Before long, there were accusations of spells and curses, and within weeks of the refusal, she was taken up as an “Altan witch.”
The officer started it, with a lurid story of how he had rebuffed her—blatant lie that it was—and how after that, she had come to him every night, sitting on his chest, and sucking out his breath (and, it was hinted, other things). Oh, that certainly did happen, and it might even have happened to the officer—but it couldn’t have been poor little Artena who’d been the sorceress! And it was certainly convenient that none of these attacks were of the sort that would leave any visible marks!
That opened the floodgates, though. Soldier after soldier claimed that she had come to him in the night and “stolen his vitality,” or brought him nightmares, or led evil wandering spirits in to attack him while he slept. No matter what anyone said, it came down to the fact that it was the word of Altans against Tians, and there was an end to it, especially once it was strongly implied that anyone who spoke up for her was liable to be charged with witchcraft as well. She was finally brought up before a Tian magistrate and sentenced—then she vanished from the village altogether in the custody of her accusers, and nothing whatsoever was ever said of her again.
The adults all went quiet if he or any of the other children asked what had happened to Artena, and he never did find out. Now, well, he knew it couldn’t have been good, and he hoped it had been quick and not too horrible. At that time, though, it had been driven forcefully home to him that such unprovable charges could be just as potent as any real crime.
So it would not have been out of the question—had he been a little older—for someone to claim Vetch had managed to make the disaster of Coresan and Seftu happen. Never mind that if such a thing could have been done, it would have to have been by means of powerful magic. And why would so powerful a magician be wasting his time to supplant a dragon boy? For that matter, why would he remain a serf, when he could use such magic to escape to Alta rather than working like a dog in the Jousters’ Compound?
The adults at least, and the older boys, dismissed such a notion out-of-hand.
But there were other possibilities, of course, and even if no one considered it possible that he had caused the accident, there was still Coresan’s behavior with Sobek to consider, for she had not had the reputation of being difficult before this. Within hours, there were dark looks from the younger ones, and suggestions of curses, though they swiftly learned not to say anything of the sort where Haraket could hear them. Only once that day, as he was bringing Coresan her evening meal, had someone come to Haraket with tales of magic, and the boy who had ventured such speculations had found himself sitting on the ground with one ear ringing from the impact of Haraket’s fist. Haraket was decidedly unamused by such arrant nonsense, and said as much.
And fortunately, none of the boys knew about his father’s shrine, or certainly there would have been dark rumors of magic.
By nightfall, after experiencing an entire day of this new change in attitude on the part of the other dragon boys, Vet
ch decided that he did not particularly care what they thought, so long as nothing bad came of it. He was, in fact, too busy to care—and the rumors and veiled accusations of curses had an effect that those who made them did not anticipate.
“That’s ridiculous,” said Haraket. And, “Too stupid to be funny, little brats, frightening themselves with bogeymen,” said the older boys, contemptuously. But—
But.
Maybe Vetch hadn’t done anything, but he was Altan, and the enemy, and the Altans had magic, too, just as the Tians did. A new set of stories and speculations began to drift among the boys. Maybe the magic that Altan sea witches were working against the enemies of their land had elected to operate on Vetch’s behalf. . . .
It was well known that magic did not always work as it was supposed to. Curses went awry, and so did blessings, sometimes alighting on targets that were related to the intended one, for the magic had to go somewhere. Perhaps Vetch was attracting Altan blessings, or providing a medium through which Altan curses could operate.
Maybe it wasn’t Vetch who was creating the curses—or blessings. Maybe it was the sea witches, and Tian magic was so effective at deflecting curses, blessings, or both, that the best outlet the magic could find was to improve the life of a single serf turned dragon boy.
And then, by nightfall, yet another variant emerged. There was a more dangerous possibility than the magic of mere mortals as the cause of Sobek’s downfall, the injury of one Tian Jouster and the disgrace of both. Maybe the Altan gods were striking back through him, or had taken an interest in his welfare. Sobek had been one of the boys who had been the most vocally contemptuous of Vetch, and his Jouster one of the Jousters most opposed to a serf as a dragon boy, and now—Sobek was dismissed in disgrace, Reaten lying in his bed with a cracked skull.
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