Joust Read online

  No one wanted to annoy a boy who might have attracted divine intervention. So even though the gossip was meant to hurt, in a way, it helped him.

  As for Coresan, by nightfall, she was back to being a bit more even-tempered. She’d had two big meals, she’d been buffed, her chain lengthened, and when he was done with Kashet, Vetch perched cautiously nearby on the very edge of her wallow, and talked to her soothingly until dark. At first, she had been suspicious, but after a time, she accepted his presence, listening to him warily.

  Given the rumors flying, he was pleased, rather than otherwise, that she didn’t warm to him immediately. That she had lost that dangerous edge was enough, for now. He really did not want to add fuel to the rumors by taming Coresan down into a Kashet in the course of half a day.

  She wouldn’t settle down and go to sleep while he was there, however, so when his own stomach growled, he decided that he had given her enough attention for the first day, and he would leave her alone until morning.

  When he arrived at the kitchen court, he paused for a moment in the entryway. And although conversation didn’t stop, it paused for a moment, and everyone—literally, everyone—stopped to take a look at him.

  Then they went back to their food. But in that brief moment, he had a sense of what had been going on while he had been shuttling between two dragons. The reaction his presence caused could not have been more remarkable. In those looks had been caution, respect, just a touch of fear, here and there. From the slaves and few fellow serfs, he saw pride, admiration. No contempt.

  And when he sat down at his usual table, the two serfs and two slaves who shared it with him gave him quick, congratulatory smiles. No more than that, but those smiles, and the approving pat on his back from his favorite serving woman, created a surge of warmth inside him that took him by surprise. The serfs and slaves then turned the discussion—among themselves—to the rumors that they had been hearing. None of them mentioned Vetch, Sobek, or Coresan by name, nor did any of the conversationalists speak to Vetch directly, but it was clear that they were using this method to let him know just what was being said about him.

  But best of all, truly the top to his day, was when a still-weary, but not-so-haggard-looking Ari arrived at Kashet’s pen after sunset. And for once, Kashet could not be roused, not even by his beloved Jouster.

  “We flew the equivalent of three combats today,” Ari said, after calling the dragon’s name and getting no response. “And to tell you the truth, he’s not in fighting condition after the rains. So I’m not surprised he won’t awaken.” Ari stretched, and winced. “I’m not in fighting condition either, to be honest.”

  “You should get another massage,” Vetch said severely, knowing by now that such boldness wouldn’t even earn a rebuke from Ari. “It doesn’t do me any good to take care of Kashet if my Jouster won’t take care of himself.”

  Ari chuckled. “Truth to tell, I just wanted to come and tell you that you have done a very fine thing with Coresan today. It was brave of you to take her and stand firm and let her test you, and braver still to work with her afterward. You gave her nearly a full day of the best possible care, and I do think that she will respond to that.”

  Vetch felt himself flushing, with embarrassment, and pleasure. “Ah—” he stammered, “—I just didn’t want to see her made into a mar dragon after you’d gone to all that difficulty in catching her. And after all you’ve told me, I thought I could probably read her all right.”

  “If what I’ve told you is helping you to get her properly tamed, then I am well-rewarded,” Ari said, with warmth. “You’ve done well, Vetch. It may be presumptuous of me to say this, but I’m quite proud of you.”

  “Oh. . . .” Vetch was quite taken aback, both by the praise and by his own reaction to it. “Ah, thank you.” He tried to think of something else to say, and couldn’t.

  Ari didn’t seem to mind. “It’s been a cursed long day for all three of us,” he said, into the awkward silence. “And I’m going to follow Kashet’s example and your advice. You should probably do the same. Good night, Vetch.”

  He limped off, but Vetch did get the last word after all, for he called after the Jouster, “Get another massage!”

  Ari’s chuckle floated back in the darkness, making him feel warm inside.

  Everyone seemed to take it as a given that Coresan would lay eggs, even though she’d only mated the once. Vetch could only shrug his shoulders at that; the only things with wings that he had any experience with were geese, ducks, and chickens. He would have thought, if dragons were a species that required multiple matings, that she would be mad to get at a male as soon as she’d slept off her enormous meals—and he was perfectly prepared for that, when morning came. He’d even shorten her chains if he had to, though he hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

  The next day, though, when the dragons flew overhead on their way to morning practice and the first patrols of the season, she yearned after them a little, but that could have been the eagerness to fly rather than to mate again. The moment that her meat appeared, she was much more interested in it than in the dragon shadows passing over her head.

  Haraket could not tell Vetch if—or how many—of her eggs were likely to be fertile after just one mating. Ari, who might have known if one mating was enough for the eggs to be good, was, well, not really available. Vetch found out that morning that Ari was now flying two patrols, his own and Reaten’s, just as he had expected would happen. Vetch vowed to manage on his own, with the information he already had, and not trouble his Jouster further. He knew from experience that Ari might well start to continue to talk on his favorite subject, then stay awake far too late to do so, in the hope that what he told Vetch would help him with Coresan.

  And he didn’t want to ask Ari for another reason, besides sparing him; Ari was sharp-witted, and might very well guess just what Vetch was planning from the tenor of Vetch’s questions.

  He wanted no one, not even Ari, to guess what his real goal had been in taking on Coresan’s care. But how could anyone, having been exposed to Kashet, not fall under the spell of dragons, and want one like him?

  He did not know how Ari would feel about that; if he’d been freeborn, there was no doubt that the Jouster would have encouraged him, but a serf? And a serf born free, born Altan? However Ari felt about the war, personally, he still fought Altans; how could he countenance putting another dragon in the hands of someone who could only be described as an enemy?

  Even if the enemy himself didn’t yet know what he would make of such a situation. . . .

  But that was counting one’s chickens—or in this case, dragons—long before they were laid, much less hatched. There were a great many obstacles to overcome before Vetch could find himself a-dragonback. And many more pitfalls, and a thousand ways in which the plan could go horribly wrong.

  He also couldn’t find anyone who could tell him how long after mating it would take a dragon to lay her eggs, which was a good thing, because it meant that no one would be expecting eggs on a given day. That was totally in his favor, for it meant that he had a measure of time in which he could act before he had to admit that there were eggs and allow the slaves to take them away to discard them.

  The one thing that everyone agreed on was that Coresan would take her time about becoming a mother. Absolutely no one expected an egg the next day, or the one after that; eggs took time to form, after all, even in chickens. Especially something as big as a dragon egg.

  Vetch had wondered, despite what Ari said, if he would have to compete with other Tians for the eggs, perhaps would-be Jousters who had not yet gotten a dragon, or even other boys who decided that they wanted to emulate Ari. It seemed logical, after all; maybe no one wanted to dare stealing eggs from wild clutches, but here was Coresan, about to go to nest, and the eggs were practically begging to be taken.

  Surely there would be one boy (other than himself) here in the compound who would want to become a Jouster by getting himself a dragon.

/>   But Ari had been right; no one rushed forward to claim an egg in order to repeat Ari’s experiment.

  Vetch couldn’t understand it. Especially given what Kashet and Ari had done in saving Reaten. It should have been obvious to a blind man that Ari’s way was the superior one. When you hatched and raised your own dragon, you got a beast that was so much easier to handle, and so much more cooperative! Why would anyone even think of taming a dragon any other way?

  But no. And when he asked, cautiously, he got the same answer that Ari had given him. The Jousters much preferred the old ways—hunting the nests of dragonets about to fledge, trapping them, and confining them while they were tamed.

  And it was clear, the more questions he asked, that they saw nothing obviously inferior in the way their dragons were trained, either. Dosing them with tala, training them until they were broken to the saddle and accepted a rider, and schooling them with increasingly heavy weights on their backs until they were grown enough to carry an adult Jouster, might be harder in the long run than Ari’s way, but it meant that the Jousters themselves didn’t have to do a thing until they were presented with a dragon already trained.

  But this was hardly the way to tame a wild thing and turn its heart toward you. Even Vetch knew that.

  What was more, besides knowing little or nothing about the taming, the Jousters weren’t even involved in the primary training of their mounts. The poor things would pass through several hands before they came to a Jouster—one group of hunters to trap the fledglings, then a coterie of trainers to make them tractable, then a dragon boy to see to their needs. By the time they finished their training, it was yet another stranger who rode them and commanded them, Jousters who never saw them except when it was time to ride. Small wonder none of them loved their Jousters. Only Ari and Kashet had that bond of trust between them that made for more than a grudging service.

  And not even a lowly dragon boy, much less a Jouster, seemed to understand how a bond like that enriched every moment of both of their lives.

  But then again, Vetch had seen how the other Jousters lived, in quarters that were certainly better than Khefti-the-Fat’s, with almost anything they could have wanted at their command. And in return for this, they rode patrols twice a day, fought Altan Jousters now and again, occasionally joined the Great King’s armies in battle, and trained and drilled. Very light duty compared to, say, that of a spearman or a bowman. Extremely light work compared with almost any craftsman, or a laborer.

  But to follow Ari’s path, once the dragonet hatched, a Jouster would have to do the very considerable work of both a dragon boy and a trainer, work that would be demanding and might be considered beneath him.

  Perhaps that was the real reason why none of them were interested.

  But why wouldn’t some other dragon boy seek to duplicate the feat?

  Perhaps because, in the end, they were lazy. What had happened with Vetch and Coresan was very different in nature from taking on a dragonet. Coresan was a “productive” dragon, trained and ready for another Jouster once the eggs were laid. A dragonet would not be ready for patrol and combat for two to four years. Haraket would hardly allow any of the dragon boys to slack on their regular duties to take on the care and feeding of a second dragonet. At least, Vetch didn’t think so. From Haraket’s point of view, a dragon boy’s duty came first, and a dragonet would be—a hobby. Something he could do if his duties permitted it, but not the sort of experiment that would permit him to shirk things like the leatherwork, the tala preservation, or the cleaning.

  Even if, contrary to Vetch’s expectations, Haraket did permit such a boy to devote himself only to his dragon and his dragonet, even with the other chores taken off his hands, that was still a lot of work. And as the dragonet grew, the burden would become greater, not smaller, for to those tasks would be added that of trainer. A dragon boy would have to be willing to do the work of three, which would leave him exactly no time for himself.

  Yes, that might well be the answer; the others valued their own ease over the possibility of becoming another Ari, with another treasure such as Kashet.

  Well, let them be shortsighted. That just made it easier to do what he wanted to do.

  On that first day, as he had buffed and oiled his new charge, his mind had been entirely on what he might do and how to do it. Once it was obvious that the only thing he needed to guard against was discovery, not rivalry, nothing else particularly mattered.

  The day after the rescue proved to be very interesting. With Ari off in the morning flying Reaten’s patrol instead of training, Vetch devoted the time to Coresan, getting her used to being handled properly. That consisted of taking her around and around her pen on a lead, and teaching her that it was more pleasant to follow him than to fight him. He did not flinch when she snapped, he did not scream at her or prod her with an ox goad when she balked. He simply let her fight the collar, then learn that when she stopped fighting, all was well again. He took the lessons in short sessions, so as not to aggravate her, and he always ended them when she had done a complete circuit of the pen without misbehaving.

  When Ari and Kashet returned, Vetch had already fed Coresan her midday meal. After Coresan had buried herself in her hot sand to drowse away her second meal of the day, Vetch fed and groomed Kashet to within an inch of his life. And before the grooming, Kashet got something he well deserved; Vetch had not forgotten his promise to Ari to reward Kashet with the treat of ox hearts. He’d gotten half a basket yesterday, and the butchers had promised Vetch more today.

  With Coresan sleeping, Vetch and his empty barrow made the trek to the butchers, who practically fell all over themselves to cull out the delicacy for the dragon hero of the hour. By this time, everyone in the entire compound, from the old man who swept the corridors to the Commander of Dragons, had heard what Ari and Kashet had done; it made Vetch wonder just how much peace Ari was going to get, after all. Kashet got a full basket of his favorite treats, and he savored them; once fed, Vetch made sure that every inch of him gleamed with buffing and oil, telling him the whole time what a fine and brave, and above all, clever fellow he was.

  If Kashet had been a cat, he would have purred, and not just because of Vetch’s ministrations. People kept coming to the door of the grooming pens to admire him, and Vetch was sure that it wasn’t his imagination that made him think there was a certain posing look about the great dragon whenever another admirer appeared. Nor did he think he was deluding himself that Kashet took care to display himself to best advantage on the side where people were.

  And with every word of praise, he arched his neck a little more, and flashed his eyes at Vetch, and became even more relaxed and happy. There was no doubt that he enjoyed hearing the tone of Vetch’s voice, but of late Vetch had to wonder just how much of the words he also understood. The more time he spent with Kashet, the more certain he became that the dragons were far more intelligent than any Jouster—except, perhaps, Ari—really guessed. In the happier days on the family farm, he’d seen their little donkey work the harder for praise, and admiration had doubled the number of mice laid out for inspection by the granary cat. Kashet was easily as intelligent as either beast.

  Still, beast he was, for he showed no signs of the thinking ability of a man. Nor did any other dragon; well, if they had been that clever, they’d have all slipped their chains and flown far out of reach a long, long time ago.

  But he could hardly begrudge Kashet his preening; he’d earned the right to preen. It had been an amazing thing that he and Ari had accomplished, and even the fact that it had been attempted at all was astonishing.

  “I won’t neglect you for Coresan, handsome one,” he told the dragon, as they paced back to Kashet’s pen, side by side. Kashet curved his sapphire neck, bringing his head down to Vetch’s level as they walked. Vetch reached up and smoothed the skin of Kashet’s golden nose and forehead, and the dragon breathed into his hair. “And I won’t neglect you for—” He didn’t say it—my egg, my dragonet�
�he didn’t dare think that far. “—for anything else either,” he promised. “As long as I’m here, I won’t neglect you, I’ll see you get the treatment you deserve.”

  As long as he was here. He could not promise more than that.

  For though he tried not to think of it, because he did not want to give himself too much hope, too many dreams, to hatch and raise a dragon meant more than just echoing Ari’s achievement. Ari was Tian; by raising Kashet, he had won an automatic place within the ranks of the Jousters. If you had a dragon, you were a Jouster, it was a simple equation. Tian custom, so resistant to change, had worked for Ari in that instance.

  But Vetch was Altan, a serf, and not born into captivity; he had no loyalty to any Tian, and no reason to fight for the Tians. In fact, he had many, many compelling reasons to fight against them. So no matter what happened, if anyone discovered he had a dragonet, it would be taken from him; no sane Tian would leave such a dangerous weapon in the hands of an enemy.

  That was the first, and most all-encompassing difficulty he would have to face, every moment of every day from the first instant of claiming an egg for his own. But if he could raise a dragonet to fledging—and teach it to carry him, so that, like Ari, his dragon’s first flight was with him on its back—

  —he could escape. And no one would be able to stop him. Not even another Jouster, if he could contrive for the flight to take place when they were all out on patrol.

  He tried not to think of that. One step at a time, and be primed for disappointment. After all, if he failed, he would be no worse off than he was now. And there were so many ways in which the plan could fail, so few that would lead to success.

  The first step: get an egg. And not just any egg; a fertile egg.

  He went to sleep at night with his mind full of prayers for success.

  For the next three days, he gave Coresan double rations, which (more than the tala, he suspected) greatly improved her temper. She swiftly put on weight until she was sleek again, and her scales shone with health and good care. On the second day, she stopped looking up when the other dragons flew overhead; she began to dig in her sand, as if she was looking for some perfect spot to nest. She had plenty of opportunity to do as she pleased, since she only left the pen with Vetch to be groomed. The rest of the time she was on a long leash and left to her own devices when he wasn’t feeding her or trying to gentle her. He still had Kashet to tend, after all, and that left her plenty of time on her own.