Aerie Read online

  Avatre had forsaken the dark and her hot sands to soak up sun just like the others, a sprawl of gilt-edged ruby glistening in the sun. She had her favorite perch atop Kiron’s dwelling, and, on hearing his familiar step, she raised her head a little to look down at him with her great, golden eyes. She made a little crooning sound on spotting him, and put her head back down again. He smiled up at her, and then simply gazed around the canyon for a moment, taking in the peacefully napping dragons. Every one of them was within snapping distance of at least one other. A couple of them were even lolling side-by-side. This was normal behavior for wild dragons; unheard of in the Jousting dragons that had never been raised by humans.

  Oh, yes. This was a far cry from the hissing, complaining dragons of the Jousters’ Compound in Tia . . . hissing, complaining, and at times, dangerous. The wild-caught dragons, even when drugged with tala, needed to be chained and regarded other dragons as potential rivals needing to be trounced. Though they had never hunted on their own, wild dragons classed human among the “prey animals,” and there was no telling which of the young dragonets brought in by hunters might have feasted at one point or another on a two-legged meal. Nor how many of them might remember doing just that thing, and try another two-legged morsel.

  So far as these dragons were concerned, humans were fellow dragons, nestmates and parents, and the very little naughtiness they got into could readily be dealt with by a fist to the top of the nose. Not that they did very much; most misbehavior occurred before fledging, when they were still small enough to discipline easily, and when they learned that a fist to the top of the nose meant they had been bad.

  And never had a human-raised dragon even snapped at a human, not even when most irritated. They were safe around adult humans; that was a surety.

  Maybe not children. No one had volunteered to test the theory so far as a young child went. Though there was no reason why they shouldn’t be just as safe; with Aket-ten there to “explain” to the dragons that a child was a nestling. . . .

  With that safeguard in place, so far as Kiron was concerned, it could be done. It definitely should be done before very much longer. Sooner or later there were going to be small children running about here. Once there were more workmen, more folk raising those incense trees, and yes, servants—those would attract bakers and brewers and tradesfolk—there would be families and children. They had better have the problem fixed before it became a problem.

  When he looked back down at the faces of his friends, he saw that they, too, were gazing at the lazy dragons with a combination of pride and affection in their eyes. Well, all the new sort of Jousters, even the most argumentative of the “old” Jousters who had gone through the difficulty of hand-raising their new dragons, shared that pride and affection. So that much bound them all together; you couldn’t raise your dragon from a wet-winged hatchling to a flying adult without loving it, and surely that shared experience would help to sort things out, if the irritations could be brought down to a reasonable level.

  They filed in the front door, crossed the little distance to the stair cut into the wall, and went up it one after the other. The upper room was full of reflected light, betraying his attempts to paint Avatre on one blank wall of his home, plastered over for the purpose. The painting looked out of proportion. The neck and legs were too long, the head too big, the wings too stretched out and too thin. Well, he was no artist and had never pretended to be. At least nobody laughed at it.

  It might be furnace-hot in the canyons, but in the back of Kiron’s second room, it was cool and comfortable. Kiron half closed the shutters to cut down on reflected glare from outside. With a sigh of relief, the nine friends sprawled out in various positions of comfort, some of them taking advantage of the cool stone floor to let the heat leach out of their bodies.

  Kiron didn’t exactly have a kitchen area—perhaps that was another reason why Aket-ten wouldn’t move in with him—but he did have some heavy storage jars with even heavier pottery lids that kept the vermin out. From them he took out strips of dried and cured meat and flatbread, and dipped out beer into pottery cups that he handed round. Hardly fancy fare, but none of them were complaining. Perhaps later today, though, he should stop by what passed for a marketplace and get some onions. About the only time he got cooked food anymore was when he visited Sanctuary.

  “So, what is it that is buzzing in your head, Kiron?” asked Orest lazily. “Not that I mind all of us getting together for a change. We don’t do that nearly enough.” Aket-ten’s brother, like all the Altans, was of a paler skin tone than the dark Tians, though the people of both kingdoms shared the same straight black hair and dark eyes. He had matured immeasurably over the last several moons. Then again, they all had. He used to be forgetful, and could be terribly lazy when he had to do something that didn’t particularly interest him. Not anymore. Though he still had not broken himself of the habit of speaking first and thinking after.

  Kiron nodded at that last with a pang. For people who had been such close friends, and had gone through so much together, it troubled him that they saw so little of each other these days. And yet, there just was not enough time in a day for them to do everything they needed to. If only they could get some workers out here, or youngsters willing to serve as dragon boys for the chance at an egg themselves one day! Or both—actually, preferably both. Then, ah then, they might have some time to themselves . . . some time to get together when there wasn’t something that needed to be talked about.

  Soon, if the gods were only pleased to grant it. Well, at least Ari was not ungenerous about supplying them with funds. They could certainly hire people, if only they could find them.

  He sighed.

  “It’s the older Jousters,” he said carefully. Orest snorted.

  “They’re spoiled,” Aket-ten’s brother said without preamble. “All they do is complain and talk about how much better it used to be. They had everything done for them in the old days, and they want that back.”

  “And you don’t?” Kiron raised an eyebrow, and Orest had the grace to blush.

  Old days, Kiron couldn’t help but be amused. The “old days” were mere moons ago.

  “Well—” Orest began.

  Huras, son of bakers who had lost everything when Alta’s capital and port were destroyed by the Magi-caused earthshakes, sighed. “We all do,” he admitted without a sign of embarrassment. “And maybe we’ll get all that back one of these days. I hope. And I don’t blame the older Jousters for wanting it either. My two—Well, I think they are doing pretty well, considering all they’re having to do and learn just to be Jousters again. Having to cope with the way things are now is hard on them. But—I’ll admit to you, I am getting tired of the complaints myself. It’s not as if we have extra workmen and dragon boys hidden away somewhere and are keeping them to ourselves, after all.”

  There Huras, practical and level-headed as always, had struck the main point. They were all having to cope with a distinct lack of comfort. There were only one or two who had come from positions in life so low that the cave-houses were actually an improvement.

  “Well,” Gan said, for once looking quite sober and serious, “I’ve thought about this a bit, and I’ve been keeping a bit of an eye on the old Jousters. No, they aren’t comfortable. No, they don’t fit in. Most of them are of much higher rank than the rest of us. All their lives they’ve had servants, and not just as Jousters. Our cave-houses really aren’t much better than holes dug in the cliffs.” Interesting to hear Gan saying this, ranking the situation into “we” and “them” and classing himself in the “we.” Interesting, because Gan was noble-born himself. And before he’d become a Jouster, he’d had a bit of a reputation for putting on airs. “They’re trying, they really are, but I wonder—I wonder if it wouldn’t be easier for them if they didn’t have to adjust to everything at once, and do it in the company of a lot of—ah—”

  Here, he clearly ran out of words for a polite description of the motley collection of
former slaves, former serfs, common-born, and noble youngsters that comprised the bulk of the new Jousters.

  “A mixed lot, and most of us are quite young compared to them, and not well-born,” Kiron finished for him. “We are the sort of people who would have been their servants, and not their brothers-in-arms.”

  Gan nodded.

  “I’ve been thinking the same,” Kiron said frankly. “And it seems to me maybe they would be more comfortable in their own wing. Granted, that would mean a wing that’s pretty much comprised of former enemies, but—”

  “Yes, but isn’t that what Ari and Nofret want? For Altans and Tians to start working together?” Gan replied with a shrug. “Anyway, they’re thrown together with former enemies as it is. Not much change for them there. It might be they’ll find more in common with each other than anyone thinks right now.”

  Pe-atep, who had been yet another servant—the keeper of great hunting cats for a noble master—laughed. “At the very least, they will all of them have the same complaints about the ‘young upstarts.’ That ought to be a common bond.”

  Kiron had to chuckle wryly. “Of course, I could be letting myself in for a lot of trouble,” he pointed out. “When you think about it, I’m putting all the people who would rather I wasn’t acting as leader of the Jousters in one wing.”

  “Yes, but you’ll have all of them in one place then,” Orest pointed out. “With them scattered out across all the wings, there’s always a chance their grousing will have an effect on some of the new ones who look up to them. Tucked into their own wing, they can’t influence anyone but each other.”

  “I also don’t want them to think I’m trying to exile them—”

  Oset-re nodded, a knowing look on his handsome face. He was another well-born Jouster, and another who had matured in unexpected ways. He had been vain, and Kiron had not been sure he would last out the training at first. Now he was as steady as Huras. “They’re more likely to take advice from another noble. I can talk to them individually, find out if they would rather have their own wing, then let them finally come around to delegating me to ask you to transfer them into a wing together. And I’ll take them, if you like. I already have two of them, and they at least listen to me with respect because of my birth.” He sighed dramatically and stared with melancholy at his rather dull meal. “The gods know rank doesn’t get me anything else anymore.”

  Orest snickered. Gan pouted with mock sympathy. “Oh, the tribulations we of noble blood must endure!”

  Menet-ka, once so shy, flung a pillow at his head. He caught it adroitly. “Why, thank you, brother. This is exactly what I needed,” he said with a mocking bow as he tucked it under his rump. “How kind of you!”

  Menet-ka made a rude gesture, and they all laughed. “Seriously, though, that is a good idea,” Kiron said, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand.

  “Of course, it’s a good idea. It’s mine, isn’t it?” said Oset-re. “If you start shuffling them about, Kiron, they’ll resent it. If they think it’s their own idea, they’ll decide that ‘the whelp’ is finally learning to show some respect to his betters. Politics and people; it’s all politics and people. I’m not the expert Lord Ya-tiren is, but those are the circles I grew up in, and I do know something of what to expect from folk in those circles.”

  Kiron spread his hands. “In that case, as you volunteered, I accept.” He sighed. “I didn’t really want this position anyway.”

  “You’re the only one that isn’t a worse choice,” Huras said thoughtfully, in his deep voice. “I don’t mean to say that the others are not competent, or at least most of them are, but—”

  “But we have a problem with some of them being truly unacceptable to the older Jousters,” Gan pointed out. “Haraket, for instance. You would think, seeing as he was the Overseer for the Dragon Courts, that they would think of him as one of them. But it doesn’t work that way. Overseers are people you hire so that you need not dirty your hands with trivial details. And Baken—he was a slave. Doubly unacceptable. The very few nobles that are not unacceptable to us because they don’t know a dragon from a doorpost are already integral members of Ari’s advisers and far too busy for anything else.”

  “What a comfort, knowing that I am the least objectionable rather than the best qualified,” Kiron said dryly, and the others laughed. “I suppose that will have to do in lieu of approval. Though I would rather have Lord Ya-tiren or Haraket in charge here.”

  And that was when another thing occurred to him. These were his friends. They were Aket-ten’s friends . . . who better to ask for advice about his quandary. Not the personal one, but the one that affected the Jousters.

  “I have another problem,” he said, a bit forlornly, which made them all prick up their ears. “And it’s one that I can’t think of any kind of solution for. Aket-ten wants me to give eggs to—girls.”

  “Why?” Orest asked, looking just a touch contemptuous. “A girl wouldn’t last ten days. Well, my sister and Nofret notwithstanding, I don’t think a girl could take all the hard work involved in raising a dragon from the egg—”

  Gan and Huras rolled their eyes. Pe-atep snickered. Orest looked bewildered. “What?” he asked. “What?”

  “If you ever in your life wish to have pleasurable company from a young lady, never voice that sort of opinion aloud again,” Huras said gravely.

  Orest’s stunned expression made them all snicker. “I don’t understand—”

  “Girls,” Huras said carefully, “become women. Women often become mothers, raising children, who are far more trouble and take much longer to mature than a hatchling dragon. You belittle that work at your peril, for all females are very well aware of this role from quite early in life.”

  Orest still looked bewildered, and Huras just shrugged. Kiron sighed. His friend was unbelievably dense sometimes. Just because Orest’s mother had possessed a horde of servants to do all the unpleasant parts of child rearing for her, it simply did not occur to Orest—and this despite the fact that he himself was now having to do without servants—that other women did not enjoy similar privilege.

  Or if it did, he probably thought that older children in the family would take the jobs that servants did for the well-off. And to an extent, that was true, but that only meant that common-born girls became accustomed to the burdens of child rearing at a much younger age than their well-born counterparts.

  Oset-re pursed his lips. “I can see the problem. There are, well, a lot of young men and boys, most of whom have already had at least something to do with dragons, if they weren’t already Jousters, waiting for eggs. And after them, more who were warriors. Giving even one egg to a girl—That is truly asking for trouble from those who have been waiting for a very long time.”

  Kiron nodded. “But she is very unhappy that I have not at least considered it.”

  Gan’s eyes widened. “That kind of ‘unhappy’? I wouldn’t have thought that of her.”

  “Not—exactly. But she has been making it—obvious—that she thinks I am being unfair.” He sighed heavily. “She brings it up every time I see her, and she does have some good arguments. And all I can say is that it’s impossible right now. Which doesn’t please her, needless to say.”

  “Too bad you didn’t win a girl who only wanted jewels,” Oset-re said with sympathy.

  “Have any of you any ideas?” he asked, looking from one to another of them hopefully. “I thought about telling her we would train any girl that managed to find her own egg or nestling, but—”

  Pe-atep shuddered. “A very, very bad idea,” he said. “It’s bad enough that some of the ones on the waiting list are going out with the old fledgling hunters trying to find a way to steal hatchlings. People will shrug and think it is sad if it’s a fellow who gets hurt or even killed doing that. ‘He knew the risks,’ they’ll say. If if a girl got hurt or killed doing that, the blame would be on you. And maybe the ghost, too.”

  “I wonder . . .” Menet-ka gazed off into the dist
ance. “Now, here is a thought. Obviously, we’re trying to accommodate former Jousters and dragon boys first. They have the experience and something like the expertise, and even Aket-ten at her most stubborn would have to admit that. But when we finally get to people who want eggs but know nothing about dragons . . . I have a notion.” His eyes returned to Kiron’s and he smiled slyly. “And it will solve a problem as well. Make it known that from now on, anyone who wants to be a Jouster that doesn’t have the experience must serve an—apprenticeship, call it—as a dragon boy. Or girl. For at least a year. Six moons serving an adult dragon, and six helping with a hatchling up to fledging.”

  “Oh—oho!” said Gan appreciatively. “By the gods, that is a plan!”

  Kiron nodded slowly and felt himself beginning to smile as well. “Anyone who does this will find out precisely how much work an adult dragon is, and will see how much more work a hatchling and a fledgling is.”

  Pe-atep pursed his lips dubiously. “We could have a very high loss of dragon boys. Some will quit within the first moon, I suspect.”

  Kiron had to shrug at that. “And this would leave whoever had lost an apprentice at precisely the same point he was before he had an apprentice at all. I think all of us are used to the work now. Besides, it’s better they quit as apprentices than take on a fledgling and abandon it.”

  They were all silent on that point. No one had—yet. The closest that anyone had come was when Toreth had been murdered, leaving his dragon bereft. Aket-ten had saved it, comforting it mind-to-mind so that it rebonded with her. But what would happen if a hatchling was abandoned? There were no other Aket-tens about to comfort it. No, this would be much, much better, solving a potential problem and Kiron’s own dilemma at a single blow.