Joust

by Mercedes Lackey

  And not an hour later, they were followed by the priests of Nuthis and Thet and Hamun, each in their own variations on priestly dress, who all trooped past Kashet’s pen while he was feeding Kashet and Avatre—

  “A man can’t turn to fart without blowing stink into a meddling priest’s face today,” growled one of the butchers to another while Vetch was collecting Avatre-sized bits for another feeding. Vetch smothered a laugh and quickly; it was funny, but not to the butcher. By now it was clear that virtually everyone else in the compound but Vetch was worried sick about the way that Altan sea witches had managed to wreak havoc on the Tian Jousters so far within the borders of Tia itself, and he didn’t want to draw attention to himself while people were so unsettled. And unfortunately, nothing that the priests were doing was giving anyone any real confidence that the compound had any more protection on it than it had before all the chanting and the processions. Everyone knew that the real, truly powerful magic went on in the holy sanctuaries, without witnesses, and this was just something to make people feel better. Whether that was true or not, Vetch had no idea.

  Part of him was fiendishly glad that the witches had done their work so well—part of him wanted to see more damage and fear—just retribution, by his way of thinking. It would be a fine thing for these Tians to get a taste of fear for a change!

  But of course, once they started to get over their fear, it would mean trouble for every Altan serf inside the borders of Tia.

  Not that all that much real damage had been done, when you came to think about it. It was only because no one had predicted what was coming, or guessed the fury of the storm ahead of time that anyone had gotten hurt at all! No one was likely to be even slightly injured the next time the sea witches sent a storm, because now everyone would fly for home the moment that thunderheads appeared on the horizon. And as he’d pointed out to Ari, rain was not going to cause any harm to the crops.

  No point in trying to tell that to anyone here, though. They weren’t likely to listen; nerves were on edge, and people were all too ready to imagine that the sea witches could do all manner of dreadful things.

  What if they call lightning to strike the compound—or the Great King’s Palace! What if they shower us with hailstones the size of pomegranates! What if they make the Great Mother River to run backward!

  What if, what if, what if—

  What if they make pigs to fly and shit on your heads from above? he thought at last, in irritation, overhearing yet another frightened and wild speculation over a hastily-snatched dinner. That’s just as likely, if not more so.

  For it didn’t seem to occur to anyone that the sea witches had not had much luck at controlling the storm that they had created; they had simply set it in motion and shoved it across the border. Vetch was a farmer’s child, and he knew, better than most, just how much worse it could have been if the Altans had any amount of control over that storm. It was, after all, the season of growing, and Altan saboteurs had already made it perfectly clear that the ruin of Tian crops was high on their list of priorities. If the sea witches had had real control over that storm, it would have been hail, not rain, that pounded down on Tian fields. The crops would spring back from the heavy rain and wind. Hail would have ruined them. Why attack the Great King’s Palace with lightning, when you could make his whole land starve? For that matter—he didn’t much want to think what a hail-storm would have done to dragons and Jousters in the air. There would have been deaths.

  Still, all the fuss was of benefit to him. No one paid any attention to what he was doing, how many barrows of meat he took, how many barrows of droppings he left, or where he was when he wasn’t where he was supposed to be.

  Avatre ate and slept and woke and ate and slept again, like virtually any other baby. By day’s end, she was demonstrably bigger and heavier—in a way, it was gratifying to see that all of the work he’d done hauling all that meat had a visible effect!—and Vetch purloined some soft cloths and a jar of oil from the buffing pens to keep her skin soft and supple while she grew. Dragons didn’t shed their whole skins at once as they got bigger; instead, they shed their skins a little bit all the time, old skin flaking and falling off, exposing new skin underneath; tiny scales grew larger, and new scales formed along the edges of old ones. Vetch didn’t know how a mother dragon kept a dragonet from itching as it grew and shed, but he would have to keep Avatre oiled and buffed, or she’d be driven mad with itching.

  Her pen was a still pool in the middle of all the chaos, and he went to it as to a refuge. She murmured sleepily as he took an oil-soaked rag and waded into the hot sand with her, to stretch out her wings and coat them with oil that soaked into them the way the first rain after the Dry soaked into the earth. The scales of her body were tiny, hardly bigger than the grains of sand around her, but they would grow, as she grew. He buffed them gently and rubbed the rag over her, and she lifted her head and gave him another of those wavering, limpid gazes, before settling back down to sleep again. He could hardly bear to leave her, but he had work to do, and it was risk enough taking this much time during the daylight hours with her.

  By nightfall, when all the priests had finally finished their bespelling and prayers, less hysterical personalities managed to prevail within the compound. Haraket kept his head the whole time, of course, and Ari and the more senior Jousters seemed to have kept the panic all around from infecting them. Interestingly, just after supper, some of the older priests of various gods turned up to help soothe some of the hysteria, and that helped. One of the most helpful was the High Priest of Hamun, who actually turned up at both the kitchen court and the Jousters’ quarters, and pointed out many of the same things that Vetch himself had been thinking all this time. He arrived in his full regalia, leopard-skin cloak with the snarling head over his right shoulder, freshly-shaved head, two standard bearers standing behind him, and bedecked with so much gold jewelry it made Vetch’s back ache in sympathy just to look at it. Supposedly he was the Great King’s uncle; he certainly had the kingly manner, and that alone seemed to set peoples’ minds moving into calmer channels. So at least, by the time that the sun set, a measure of quiet had returned to the Jousters’ compound, if not peace.

  Things were still edgy and chaotic the next day, and the next, which was all to the good so far as Vetch was concerned. The more people were focusing their attention on what was going on—or presumed to be going on—outside the compound, the less they would notice what was going on inside.

  Even Ari was so preoccupied that if Vetch hadn’t made a point during his cleaning of snatching away the dirty garments as soon as Ari shed them and making sure the linen chest was full of clean ones, he probably would have worn the same kilt three days running. He wasn’t in his quarters or out on Kashet much, and Vetch could only assume that he and the other senior Jousters were engaged in some sort of council with important leaders of the army and the government.

  Vetch himself was certainly doing enough running. He ran everywhere he went; it was the only way to make everything fit into the day. He worked with one ear cocked nervously for a sound in Avatre’s pen, he worried that Kashet might betray what was going on with his mild interest in what was on the other side of the wall. . . .

  Kashet surely scented something, or heard it. He tried several times to peer over the wall to see what was there, but the canvas awning on the other side foiled his attempt to look into the wallow, and much to Vetch’s relief, he finally gave it up.

  And Avatre ate, and slept, and grew, definitely bigger every day . . . and the compound held its collective breath, and waited to see if the sea witches were going to be able to repeat their attack.

  Sure enough, on the fourth day, another of those monster storms roared up out of the North, sending the dragons flying for home before it.

  This time, though, there were no injuries. As Vetch had figured, the first sight of a thunderhead building up was enough to send the dragons all back well in advance of the gust front.

  Th
is storm was a little different, too; with a great deal of wind and lightning, but the initial downpour was much shorter, and the light rain and overcast persisted longer, forcing the dragons to stay in their pens all that day and the next, except for brief patrols over Tian lands and even briefer practice sessions. The exercise was just enough to take the edge off their restlessness.

  There was nothing to take the edge off the restlessness of their Jousters. This was not the season of rains, they were not working on the ragged remains of their strength and happy to have the time to rest; quite to the contrary, they were fit and itching for action, and to be held confined to the compound by a pack of witches—

  Well, it rankled. They badly needed something to do. Vetch sensed it in the sour looks, sour tempers, and growing tension. He heard wild parties at night in the Jousters’ quarters, and heard rumors of scandalous escapades among the dancing girls, and of broken furniture. He started taking the most out-of-the-way corridors when he had to go anywhere, and so did the rest of the serfs. He’d seen this mood before, and when tempers flared, well—

  If it is a choice between Tian and an Altan serf— no matter who is in the wrong, it is always the Alton who pays.

  He redoubled his efforts at stealth. He bit his nails to the quick in worry over Avatre. The tension could not last. Something would break, and soon. But he knew that. And he kept telling himself that all he could do was to stay out of the way, and hope that it did not break over him—

  Vetch was eating his noon meal in the farthest corner of the kitchen court, when the noise from the corridor made him whirl and look at the blank wall behind him in alarm. A shiver of fear gripped him as he wondered if the all of the stress he’d sensed had finally found an outlet, for it sounded like a mob in full cry—

  And he wondered who or what was the target for all that pent-up tension—

  —or if they could be coming for him—

  But then, one of the slaves dashed into the court, his eyes wide with excitement and not fear. “A dragonet!” he shouted. “Two of the Jousters have brought in a wild dragonet! Come and see!”

  He dashed out again, followed by a stream of quicker-witted folks or more curious dragon boys and servants, as a new fear held Vetch paralyzed in his seat for a moment.

  Have they found Avatre?

  He broke the paralysis in the next instant—he had to know! With the others who were more slow to react, he shoved his way to the door, just as the procession of two of the younger Jousters and a small army of slaves came triumphantly by. They were, indeed, hauling a squalling, protesting, blue dragonet, encased in a net and bundled onto a palanquin carried on the shoulders of a team of eight or ten slaves. This was a much, much older dragonet than Avatre; it was easily the size of one of the huge, sacrificial bulls of Hamun. Its claws had been encased in padding and bags, its legs tied together, its mouth trussed shut. It looked absolutely furious, and Vetch did not want to be the person who cut it loose.

  “Where are they going?” he blurted, not thinking, not really expecting an answer.

  “Oh, they’ll put the beast in one of the open pens and one of the trainers will come care for it until it’s tame,” came the answer from above and behind him. “Tame enough for a dragon boy to look after, anyway. Haraket won’t be pleased! He’ll be the fellow who will have to find a boy, and all out-of-season.”

  Vetch looked quickly around behind him, and saw that the speaker was one of the slaves, one that had been reasonably civil to him from the time he arrived. “Why?” he asked, feeling bewildered. “I mean, I don’t mean why are they doing that, I mean why did the Jousters go out after a dragonet, and why go after one that isn’t even fledged yet?”

  The slave grinned down at him and winked.

  “You’ve been keeping yourself to yourself these few days, or you’d have heard. The Great King sent down a decree to the Jousters. If Alta is going to try to ground our Jousters, then the Great King wants more of them—too many to keep on the ground, no matter how many storms the sea witches raise! So.” He nodded after the mob, which had turned a corner, leaving only the noise behind. “Now the most restless of the Jousters are going to help the trackers and trappers out, as they used to when there were fewer of them.”

  Vetch blinked. “More dragons?” he asked.

  “More dragonets, more Jousters in training, both,” the slave corrected. “And the King’s Vizier made the little suggestion that since the Jousters are grounded, perhaps they ought to be the ones hunting the new dragonets.”

  “But—” Vetch thought about the fury in that young thing’s eyes, and pictured to himself the fury of the mother if she happened to return while her babies were being abducted. “Isn’t that dangerous?”

  “Entirely,” the slave replied callously. “And so long as no one tells me to go along on one of these hunts, I care not. Whatever it takes to get the young hotheads’ minds off making trouble around here is perfectly fine. You would not believe what they’ve been getting up to in their quarters. The wrestling matches that end in broken furniture are bad enough, and the drunken parties, and the wild adventures with all of the dancing girls, but there are four very angry nobles who had to drag their daughters out of rooms in the compound that they should never have been in, and several more who’ve been asking pointed questions about where their wives have been, and with whom.” The slave snickered. “Which is probably why the King’s ‘suggestion’ was phrased so near to an order.”

  Vetch could certainly agree with that, but he had to know more, and he decided to go in search of Haraket.

  Haraket, it seemed, was already in search of him. He spotted Vetch coming around a corner, and shouted his name. Vetch hurried toward him.

  “I’ve three—gods save us, three!—spitting and yowling dragonets, and more to come, and I need you and Fisk to help train new serf boys,” he growled, as soon as Vetch came within earshot. He was accompanied by a tall, aristocratic man in a fine kilt, striped headdress, and a simple, but very rich, neckpiece and armlets. “Gods help us! If we don’t have some of them killed before this is over—” He shook his head.

  “Well, it’ll be the stupid ones, or the ones with more bravado than sense, so, small loss, I suppose.”

  “No loss,” said the stranger, who had the deep-set eyes, the beaky nose, and the stern look of one of the statues of the Great King. He looked down at Vetch. “So, this is your little serf boy, Haraket? The one who makes dragons love him?”

  “The very one,” Haraket replied, with a hint of a smile.

  Vetch, meanwhile, felt himself held in the man’s powerful gaze. Whoever this was, Vetch felt like a mouse between the paws of a cat. He knew he should avert his gaze and stare at the ground in respect, but he couldn’t look away! He was fascinated and terrified at the same time by this man—a powerful man, an important man—

  A man who could order my death and be obeyed on the spot—

  How he knew that, he didn’t know, but he knew instantly that it was nothing less than the truth.

  It felt as if his mind was being rummaged through. Desperately, he kept his thoughts on Kashet, on Coresan, on all of the dragons he had been making friends with, a little at a time. . . .

  “So, boy,” the man said, speaking directly to Vetch, as no Tian noble had ever done before, “How do you make dragons love you? Is it some witchery?”

  Vetch gulped. Witchery! Oh, gods, that was the last thing he wanted anyone to think! “I’m—good to them—lord,” he whispered. “Patient. Careful. I—give them treats—show them the pleasures of being obedient—let them become my friend—I coax them to be good—” He fumbled for the words to describe what he was doing, and failed. “I—like them,” he said desperately.

  To his shock, the man tossed back his head in a bellow of laughter, freeing him from that paralyzing gaze. The stranger slapped Haraket’s back; Haraket actually staggered.

  “A good answer! A true answer!” the man said, still laughing. “So speaks any good tame
r of animals! Well enough, Haraket, find me more such as this boy, and I authorize you to take as many boys, be they free, slave or serf, as you need for the new Jouster Hundred. You undertake that—I will find you Jousters who are neither too bold nor too foolish, even if I have to take them from the fields and the quarries to find sensible men of courage to fill those saddles. And if our nobles are offended by this, and feel I have demeaned their feckless sons by allowing peasants and laborers to serve alongside them—well, they can come and quarrel with me.”

  With that, the man strode away through the mist and rain, paying so little heed to the weather that it might as well have been bone dry.

  “That, young Vetch,” Haraket said with satisfaction, “is the Commander of Dragons, who just happens to also be the Great King’s seventh son by one of his Lesser Wives. And if our young hotheads can actually manage to steal so many dragonets from the nest—and I am forbidding them to take more than one from any one nest—then we are about to double our strength to a full Hundred, and perhaps more. Though—where I’m to find so many dragon boys—boys who have experience—boys who are not intimidated or afraid of dragons—”

  “Shouldn’t they just love animals and understand them?” Vetch said, without thinking.

  “What?” Haraket said, startled.

  “Someone like Fisk—” Once again, he knew what he wanted to say, but didn’t have the words for it. “He loved his goats—he knew how to see what they were going to do by the way they acted—” He floundered, but Haraket’s eyes lit up. “It’s not like dragonets are as big as grown dragons. Even one the size of an ox is still just a baby, after all! And he said you could take serfs or slaves—and serfs and slaves are always doing the dirty work around animals.”