Joust Page 16

  “Turn about, boy,” the magistrate ordered distantly. Vetch dropped his mantle at his feet, and did so, turning away from Khefti. He dared not meet his former master’s eyes, or he would not be able to stop his trembling. “It appears, from the number of scars upon this boy’s back, that he has been punished far in excess of what I would deem reasonable. Also, I have no doubt that Jouster Ari is speaking the truth about his starved condition, which is also not reasonable. Have you anything to say about this, Potter Khefti?”

  “The boy is a fool, Magistrate!” Khefti protested. “Almost an idiot! He would spoil good food rather than eat it, and the only way to correct him was to beat him! I tell you, no one else would take him when the time came to apportion the serfs to the land! He is as ignorant as a desert rat, and as stupid as a stone! He scarcely understands the simplest of orders!”

  That—lying beast! Vetch’s indignation almost overcame his fear as Khefti painted him to be utterly worthless, naturally brutish, wantonly foul, unfit to be in the company of anyone civilized. He made up an entire litany of things Vetch had supposedly done: objects broken, items spoiled, the trail of mischief and malicious ruin he supposedly left behind him. He wove his lies cunningly—

  And above all, he had the advantage of being Tian, free, and a craftsman.

  And as a serf, Vetch could not even speak for himself, in his own defense.

  “Why, how very interesting that is—since he has become one of the most competent dragon boys in the Courts in the short time that he has been with us,” Haraket exclaimed, when Khefti ran out of vile things to accuse Vetch of. Haraket’s voice was even a little higher than usual, as if he was shocked by Khefti’s statements.

  “Furthermore, my dragon Kashet will not do without him, Magistrate,” Ari added. “My dragon has never been so well tended. In fact, thanks to this one, I have been able to take over the full patrol of any ailing or incapacitated Jouster we might have, as well as my own, so well-tended Kashet is.”

  “Oh?” Vetch turned round about again at Haraket’s prodding; the magistrate seemed interested now.

  “The skill of this dragon boy with his charge has relevance to this case. We must see this.”

  Ari smiled. “Vetch,” he said, with calm confidence,

  “Please go and bring Kashet back to the Dragon Hall.”

  Vetch made an awkward little bow and scuttled off. But not before he overheard the magistrate say to Ari,

  “If that boy can budge a dragon in this weather, he must be the most remarkable dragon boy in the compound.”

  Vetch ran out into the rain, and wondered as he passed through the doors just how he was expected to get Kashet into the building, but at the moment, that hardly mattered. As long as he could get the dragon here, that was all he needed to do. His problem was going to be getting Kashet out of his hot wallow and into the cold rain. Kashet liked the rain as little as Vetch did, and if Kashet didn’t care to budge, there wasn’t going to be a great deal that Vetch could do about it.

  If he couldn’t manage to get Kashet to obey, would the case be lost? Would he have to go back to Khefti? He’d never had to ask Kashet to do something that the dragon really didn’t want to do—until now.

  His feet slapped on the wet floor of the corridor, splashing through little puddles standing here and there. The rain was not going to quit, and Kashet had made it very plain this morning that the dragon did not like the rain, at all. If Vetch’s stomach had hurt before, it felt as if there was a cold rock in it now. His shoulders were so tight that he was afraid to turn his head too quickly, lest his neck lock in place. And when he reached Kashet’s pen, the rain was still coming down as hard and as cold as ever, maybe harder, and the dragon had not moved since he’d left.

  That was not a good sign. What if Kashet had gone torpid? What if he was so deeply asleep that nothing would wake him?

  Sprinting to the front of the wallow where Kashet’s head rested, he saw with relief that at least the dragon’s eyes were open. So he wasn’t asleep, and he wasn’t torpid.

  “Kashet!” he shouted, hearing his own voice going shrill with nervousness in his ears. “Kashet, up!”

  Kashet raised his head and swiveled it down to stare at him, his huge eyes focused and wide. Vetch thought that the dragon looked incredulous, as if he could not believe that Vetch was ordering him out of his wallow. And he showed no signs of intending to obey the order.

  “Kashet, up!” he repeated, feeling desperation eat at him. This could go badly so easily! What if he couldn’t get the dragon to his feet? What would he do then? He felt his throat tighten and his stomach began knotting even more. “Please, Kashet!” he begged shamelessly, feeling his eyes sting as he tried not to blubber. “Please, Kashet! Stand!” He got an idea—if ever there was a time to see whether the dragon understood more than simple commands, now was the moment to test that hypotheses. “Ari, Kashet!” he cried, “We need to go to Ari! Up!”

  Whether Kashet understood him, understood the desperation in his voice, or just elected to be obedient, Vetch couldn’t tell. All that mattered was that after a moment that seemed to last a year, the dragon sighed, heaved himself out of the wallow with a groan, ducking his head to avoid the canvas awning, and stepped up onto the stone verge. He gave Vetch a sorrowful, long-suffering look as the first drop of rain hit his nose, and he tucked his wings in close to his body, the first sign, so Ari had said, of an unhappy dragon.

  “I know,” Vetch said, feeling terribly sorry for his charge. If the air and rain were cold to him, what must Kashet be feeling? “I know, it’s horrible. But please, Kashet, we have to go to the Dragon Hall. We have to go to Ari. Kashet, come—”

  He put one hand on Kashet’s shoulder, as always, and stepped forward, not knowing if the dragon was really going to follow, and terrified that he would not.

  But after only a slight hesitation, Kashet paced unhappily forward.

  They made their way along mostly deserted corridors; the rain was keeping everyone with any sense in under a roof. Kashet looked longingly back a time or two, and made false starts off toward the familiar destination of the buffing pens, but when Vetch didn’t veer in that direction, he heaved another pained sigh and kept going with his wings clamped tightly to his body, head down, rain dripping from his nose and wings, the very picture of one who is imparting the greatest of favors by going along with something he doesn’t want to do, and not enjoying it one bit.

  Vetch’s heart was in his mouth with every step they took. The farther they got from the pen, the more likely it was that Kashet would decide that he had had enough of the cold and the rain, and rebel. It would be perfectly logical for Kashet to decide he’d had enough of this nonsense, and turn back to the pen. Vetch didn’t have a chain or a collar on the dragon; he had no way whatsoever of controlling him. In the urgency of the moment, it hadn’t even occurred to him to go look for a chain and collar, and now it was too late.

  Too late to do anything but hope that the habit of obedience was strong enough to overcome Kashet’s distaste for the cold and wet, that the dragon understood he was to go to his beloved Jouster, that Kashet really did feel enough affection for his dragon boy that he would obey in the face of discomfort, or all three.

  And he dreaded the moment when they turned down that corridor that ended in the Dragon Hall, for when Kashet saw the dead end, he would be all too likely to turn back. How was he going to stop the dragon? Would Kashet respond to another shouted order, or would he just ignore Vetch and go back to his pen?

  Kashet’s head came up, though, the moment that they turned into the dead-end corridor where the Dragon Hall stood. Vetch saw at the very same time that the little door he had gone through had simply been inset in a much larger door that would admit a dragon, and that this door now stood open wide, though how anyone could move something that big was a mystery to him. Kashet’s nostrils flared, and he picked up his pace, then craned his neck forward, peering through the rain, and increased it again, until Vetc
h was running to keep up alongside him—

  Of course, by Kashet’s standards, it was still nothing but a fast walk.

  And as Vetch peered through the curtain of rain, he saw what Kashet had alerted on—Ari, standing just inside the door. Of course! Kashet must have scented Ari before he saw him—Vetch felt a rush of relief that the Jouster had thought of coming out where the dragon could scent and hear him.

  Ari retreated back into the building, but Kashet had seen enough. He knew where Ari was, now, and no matter how much he wanted to go back to his wallow, Ari’s presence was a more powerful draw than the now-distant sands of his pen.

  When Vetch and Kashet entered the shelter of the Dragon Hall, Ari was back at the foot of the dais with Haraket, the magistrate looking on with interest. Kashet paused for a moment in the relative dimness, probably so that his eyes could adjust, then resumed his walk toward his Jouster—but now that he was in more confined surroundings, and out of the rain, he proceeded at a ponderous walk that Vetch easily matched.

  As they neared the dais, Khefti was moving, too, backing up, eyes wide, one crablike step at a time, until his back was against a pillar and he could go no further. The magistrate, however, showed no signs of alarm, and appeared to be as easy in the presence of dragons as Haraket.

  When they got within speaking distance of the group, Vetch noticed that Ari’s lips were moving in an exaggerated fashion, as he mouthed something, as if he was trying to tell Vetch something he didn’t want to say aloud. Vetch narrowed his eyes, and tried to make it out.

  One word.

  Down.

  Ah! Of course—he needed to demonstrate that he could command Kashet without chains and other devices. “Kashet, down!” he ordered, and Kashet obeyed, ponderously dropping both fore- and hindquarters down onto the sandstone paving squares. Only then did Ari come forward to take his place on the opposite side of the dragon from Vetch, and Kashet curved his neck around and brought his head down for a well-deserved scratch from his beloved Jouster. His wet scales gleamed in the torchlight like an enormous pile of gemstones, and he shone in this opulent setting as beautifully as any exquisite jewel. If the magistrate was looking for evidence of a well-cared-for dragon, Kashet’s appearance was certainly that.

  “Well,” the magistrate said, his voice taking on a slight tinge of warmth, as his lips curved in the faintest of smiles. “No collar, no chain, brought here all the way through the rain—this is the most remarkable dragon boy in the compound. He definitely serves the Great King far better in this position than any other.” He chewed on his lower lip for a moment, then seemed to make up his mind about something. “In fact, I cannot see how he could be replaced. The Great King requires his services here.”

  “No!” Khefti shouted, his face purple with rage, as he lost all control, seeing his property slipping through his fingers. “No! He is mine, mine by right!” And he lunged toward Vetch, who reacted instantly out of long habit by cringing back against Kashet’s side.

  All of Kashet’s languor vanished. He shot to his feet and spread his wings, cupping them over Vetch, then snapped out his neck parallel to the ground as far as it would go. He made one angry bite at the air in warning, and hissed at Khefti with the sound of water hitting white-hot stone.

  Khefti yelped with sheer terror, and lurched backward as quickly as he’d lunged forward. Kashet didn’t—quite—snap his jaws a second time at the swiftly retreating brick maker, but it certainly looked as if he wanted to.

  “Most interesting,” was all the magistrate said, as Ari slapped Kashet’s neck to get his attention, and ordered him down again. Khefti remained where he was, warily out of reach.

  “Magistrate!” the brick maker called desperately. “It isn’t just the land—property into which, I say again, I have invested all that I own, property which was to support me and mine in my honorable age, when I can no longer ply my lawful trade! This boy is—was—all I have to tend my tala field! I cannot tend it and attend to my apprentices at the same time! Where will the tala for the Great King’s Jousters come from, if my field withers for lack of tending?”

  “There are other fields,” Ari said, making his annoyance at Khefti’s attempt to play at blackmail very evident. But a shaven-headed, white-kilted scribe who had been standing at the side of the dais, hidden in the shadows until now, came forward at that, and whispered in the magistrate’s ear. The old man listened carefully, nodding—then smiled.

  Smiled benevolently at Ari and Haraket—then turned the smile on Khefti. But when he did so, the smile was—less benevolent. Vetch might, if he’d been asked to describe it, call it “vindictive.” And it came to him in that moment that the magistrate had taken more of a dislike to Khefti than Vetch could have ever thought possible, that he would not, would never, exceed the bounds of justice and the law, but when justice and the law handed him a means to deliver Khefti a blow, he was not above taking joy in the fact that it had done so.

  “Of course we cannot allow a tala field to fail,” he said, in so smooth a voice that not even the finest cream could have been smoother. “Nor can we deprive you of the investment you made to sustain you in your age. Not when there is a simple solution available to us.”

  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. Th
e 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.