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  But Haraket gave him a long and measuring look, and after a pause while his heart pounded, Vetch continued pushing the barrow forward, telling himself that if Kashet had wanted to eat him, he’d have gone down that long throat while he was still struggling with the saddle.

  Kashet plucked chunks from the barrow three more times before Vetch parked it where Haraket pointed. He ate neatly, if voraciously, snatching up a chunk of meat, tossing back his head, and swallowing it whole. Vetch could even see it traveling down his long neck by the bulge it caused.

  But he never so much as gave Vetch a threatening or speculative look. Haraket stood at the side of the sand pit with his arms crossed casually over his massive chest, completely relaxed. Vetch tried to copy his example, though his heart raced in his chest.

  But Kashet was not in the least interested in Vetch, only what was in the barrow. And in fact, the dragon began to remind Vetch of a falcon, a little, in the neat single-mindedness with which he filled his belly.

  “He’s an easy charge, so long as you do well by him,” Haraket said, speaking quietly. “The only time he’s even offered a snap at someone was when the idiot boy forgot his evening feed and he didn’t get a meal until morning. By the God Haras, I’d have snapped, too! And the fool blubbed at me after, and thought I’d feel sorry for him!” Haraket snorted. “I pitched that one out on his ear myself.”

  Vetch vowed never to be so much as a moment late with one of Kashet’s meals.

  Haraket frowned, though not at Vetch. “That was Kashet’s first boy; two dragon boys we’ve lost now, and Kashet’s the easiest beast in the compound! He takes a bit more time in tending perhaps, but by the gods, it isn’t the kind of time you waste with one who’s hell-bent on not going where you want him to!” The Overseer sighed. “Maybe it’s Ari. He doesn’t pet and praise his boys, take them along to feasts, the way some of the others do. And there’s no profit to be made out of him. . . .” Haraket turned, ever so slightly, and looked out of the corner of his eye at Vetch.

  Vetch kept his mouth shut. Haraket was telling him this for a reason, and if he didn’t yet know what the reason was, soon or late he’d find out about it.

  Besides, that angry little voice inside him reminded him, it isn’t as if you have a choice. It’s here, or Khefti.

  When the barrow was empty, Kashet heaved an enormous sigh, and returned to the hot sand. This time he dug himself a depression in the middle of it, and stretched his entire length within it. Within moments, he was, to Vetch’s astonishment, deeply asleep.

  “He’ll sleep like that until it’s time to go out again this afternoon,” Haraket said, with a little noise that sounded like a fond chuckle. “You couldn’t wake him now if you tried. Ari was back early from his patrol—so we’ve just enough time to get you kitted up and clean and fed before I show you the afternoon jobs.” He paused, and raised an eyebrow. “And I believe we should do something about those stripes of yours, too.”

  Vetch almost gaped at him in shock. Never, ever, had one of his masters offered to do anything about the marks of a beating!

  With that, they left Kashet wallowing in the sand, sleeping off his meal in the noontime sun that beat straight down on him, met by the heat radiating up from the sand. Haraket hustled Vetch off again, again to a room, and not an open-air courtyard, though it was not nearly as huge as the butchery. This was a very fine room indeed, with plain, honey-colored limestone walls, narrow openings near the ceiling to bring in air and light while excluding the full cruelty of the sun and the kamiseen. It even had a stone floor. The only buildings that Vetch had ever seen that were made of stone like this were temples, and he found himself trying not to gape. Along one side of this room were ranged full terra-cotta jars of water as tall as Vetch was, with wooden or horn ladles hung on their sides. There were also neatly-folded piles of fabric on shelves above the jars, what looked like smaller pottery jars of unguents and possibly soap. And to clinch that this room was for bathing, there was a drain in the center of the floor.

  Haraket shoved him inside as he stood hesitantly on the threshold. “Strip,” he ordered Vetch, abruptly. “I hope you know how to wash.”

  He sounded dubious, which woke some smoldering resentment, but Vetch didn’t have to be told what to do twice. The last proper bath he’d had was—

  He cut off the unwanted memory—of washing off blood. His father’s blood. . . .

  It was enough that he would have a proper bath now.

  He pulled off the rope belt and the rags, and hesitated with them in one hand. Surely he should wash them?

  “Feh, boy, you don’t think that’s worth saving, do you?” Haraket barked with distaste. “Throw it there, and get on with it!”

  He pointed to a rubbish pile, and not at all loath to rid himself of the rags, Vetch tossed them aside. He headed straight for the water jars and ladled dipperfuls of water over himself, scrubbing himself down with a handful of lye soap and a loofah sponge. And he scrubbed every inch of himself as well, fingernails, toenails, even his back, though the soap got in the cuts and stung until he had to bite his lip, trying to get stains off his legs, wishing he had a razor so he could shave his skull bare as his father had used to do for him. . . .

  He scrubbed himself twice over, rinsing himself with more water from the jars, and was about to start on a third round when Haraket grunted. “That’ll do, boy. Any more, and you’ll have the skin off. I want you clean, not raw.”

  Haraket tossed him a folded piece of cloth to dry himself with, then another bundle of fabric when he’d done with that; he caught it, and unfolded it to find, not just a loincloth, but a proper linen kilt, such as he had not worn in—

  —in too long. Not since the moment he had been made a serf.

  But he still remembered how to wrap a simple kilt, or his hands did, anyway. Then, skin tingling and arrayed in that real linen kilt of his own, he turned obediently to the Overseer for the expected inspection.

  Haraket surveyed him, and nodded with satisfaction. “Not so bad,” he said, with reluctant approval. “You clean up better than I’d have guessed. By the way, dragon boys don’t wear sandals; you’d lose them in the sand wallows. From the look of your feet, they’re tough enough. Now, turn your back to me.”

  Vetch did so, as Haraket got one of the jars of unguent from a shelf, and applied it generously to the whip marks.

  And the pain vanished, replaced entirely by a cool tingling. Vetch couldn’t believe it, and as Haraket put the jar back on the shelf, he turned, wondering if he should thank the Overseer.

  But Haraket forestalled him with a question. “Hungry?”

  Vetch tried, tried so hard, not to look too eager, but—

  —well, he was only a little boy, after all, and not too practiced in disguising his expression except by the simple expedient of staring at his feet. Haraket, for the first time that day, actually smiled.

  “Now it is me who is the fool. Of course you are. You look like a sack of gnawed bones. Come along.”

  Haraket strode out of the bathing chamber and Vetch scrambled after him, beginning to feel very dazed by this marked change in his fortunes. This morning, he had been filthy, starving, and about to be beaten. Now he was clean, well-clothed, and so far, he hadn’t encountered anyone who was likely to have as heavy a hand with the stick as Khefti.

  “What’s your name, boy?” the Overseer asked gruffly. “I can’t keep calling you ‘boy,’ or I’ll have half the compound answering when I shout at you.”

  “Vetch, sir,” Vetch replied, taking two steps for every one of Haraket’s.

  “And who was your master, Vetch? Ari’s going to want that assessor out on him by tomorrow, I expect, so I had better get that sorted by this afternoon.” Haraket gave Vetch another of those sidelong looks. “That’s what I’m for; seeing the tallies are all correct, all the chickens put to roost.”

  “Khefti-the-Fat, sir. He’s a potter and brick maker with six apprentices, and he has a tala field outside his hou
se in the village of Mu-asen—” For a moment, Vetch worried that this wouldn’t be enough to identify his former master, but Haraket interrupted him.

  “That’s enough, Vetch. There can’t be more than one fat potter with a tala field within a hop of Mefis. The King’s assessor will find him.”

  And then, as Haraket turned to open yet another door and he followed, he discovered that he had been led straight into paradise.

  Or if not quite paradise, it was as near as Vetch had ever been to it.

  “Paradise” was a kitchen courtyard of lime-washed mud-brick walls, shaded from the pitiless sun by bleached canvas awnings strung between the courtyard walls, additionally supported by ropes crossing underneath them, tethered to the other walls. It was full of simple wooden benches and tables set with reed baskets heaped with bread, pottery jars of beer with the sides beaded with condensation, wooden platters of cheese, baked latas roots, and sweet onions. And little bowls of the juice and fat of roast duck, goose, and chicken, such as he had not tasted since the moment he became a serf. The aroma of all that food made him feel faint and dizzy again.

  He stared at it, not daring to go near, hoping beyond hope that he would be allowed the remains whenever Haraket and the other masters were finished eating.

  And then his stomach growled, and hurt so much it brought tears to his eyes for a moment. And the anger returned, anger at these arrogant Tians for making him stand in the presence of plenty that he wasn’t to touch—

  “Well, what are you waiting for, boy?” Haraket said impatiently. “Sit down! Eat! You do me no good by fainting from hunger!”

  And he shoved Vetch forward with a hand between his shoulders, making it very clear that this was not some cruel joke.

  Vetch stumbled toward the table and took a seat on the end of the nearest bench, hardly daring to believe what he’d heard.

  He looked up at Haraket again, just to be sure. The Overseer made an abrupt gesture with one hand; Vetch took that as assent.

  He managed, somehow, to react like a civilized and mannerly farm boy and not cram his mouth full with both his hands. It took all of the restraint he had learned at Khefti’s hands, though, for the aromas filled his nose, and the nearest platter of loaves filled his sight, and his mouth was watering so much he had to keep swallowing or he’d drool like a hungry dog.

  He took one of the little loaves though his hands shook, tore it neatly in half. Helped himself to a single piece of cheese, to latas and onion, and a small jar of beer. He laid all of this on the wooden table in front of him, and only then began eating; the taste of fresh bread nearly made him weep with pleasure. It was still warm from the oven, the crust crisp and not stale, the insides tender and not dry, and it was three times the size of his ration under Khefti. Then he dipped the other half of the bread in the rich fat, and took a bite, and did weep, for the taste exploded on his tongue, and with it came all the memories of what home on a feast day had been like. . . .

  He glanced back at Haraket, but the man was gone. Which meant—his mind reeled with the thought—which meant that he was expected to eat his fill, and no one would stop him!

  But the memory of a day during the rains when he’d found a discarded basket of water-soaked loaves in the market warned him against gorging. That day had been a disaster; he’d eaten himself sick, and had spent a horrible night, stifling his groans as his belly ached. He’d gotten punished twice, in fact, once with a bellyache, and the next day when his exhaustion made him sluggish and he’d soon collected a set of stripes from Khefti. He would eat slowly, and yes, eat his fill (or as near as he was allowed) but he would not stuff himself, or he would be very sick, and his new masters would surely be angry at him. So far, no one had been ready to add to his stripes. He would not let his greed give them an opportunity.

  When he’d finished the first round of bread, he started on the cheese and onions, and about that point, the other dragon boys started coming in.

  A group of four came in together, chattering away. Like him, all were clothed in simple linen kilts and barefoot. Like Haraket, all wore a hawk-eye talisman at their throats. They were older, taller and stronger than Vetch was, though; and well-fed, and moving with the kind of casual freedom that no serf or slave ever displayed. And unlike him, if their hair wasn’t cut short, their heads were shaved altogether. That was the mark of an Altan serf; long, unbarbered hair, like some wild barbarian tribesman from the desert, like one of the Bedu, the nomads who had no king, only tribal rulers. Tians, the masters, shaved their heads, or trimmed their hair at chin length.

  He made himself as small as he could on the bench.

  They stopped dead at the sight of him, and eyed him with curiosity. “Who’s that?” one asked of the largest of the four.

  “Kashet’s boy,” said the other, with a knowing glance. “I heard Jouster Ari brought in a serf over his saddle bow that he’d decided to make into his new dragon boy.”

  “Huh,” the first replied, and looked down his long nose at Vetch, his black eyes narrowing with superior arrogance. “Mind your manners, Kashet’s boy,” he said loftily to Vetch. “We’re all free here but you, so remember your place.”

  Vetch ducked his head. “Yes, sir,” he murmured, and that seemed to satisfy the other, for he crowded onto the bench near his friend and paid no more heed to Vetch.

  Vetch felt his anger churn inside him again. They were just like Khefti’s apprentices, worthless lot that they were! They thought that the worst of them was superior enough that Vetch should offer his head to their feet! None of them, likely, had ever been land-owners! Had he not been born free, as free as any of them, and son to a family who had owned their land for generations?

  But he had not lived the last few seasons without learning that when a freeman and a serf had conflicts, it was always the serf who lost.

  So he kept his eyes fastened on his food, kept his anger in check, and hastened to make himself even smaller. He watched the others when he went for more food, always snatching his hand back empty if it looked as if one of the free boys was interested in the platter or basket that he was reaching for.

  But even so, for the first time in a very, very long time, he was able to eat as much as he wanted. In fact, he had not really eaten like this very often back when his father was alive, for even a farmer did not have the means to produce a seemingly never-ending stream of food and drink at a meal. Only a great village feast would bring forth this sort of abundance. Kitchen girls—slaves, he thought by their neck rings, though they were the sleekest and best-looking such slaves he had ever seen—kept coming out of the kitchen with more food, more beer; no matter how much the boys ate, there was always more. One of the older girls seemed to have taken a liking to him; she made certain that there were platters within his reach, and replaced the empty jar at his hand with a full one. He thanked her shyly, and she winked at him and hurried back into the kitchen.

  Haraket came for him about the time that he had decided he couldn’t safely eat another morsel. That was long before the other boys finished—but then, he’d had a head start on them, and they were lingering over their food.

  The boys hushed their chatter when Haraket appeared in the doorway, and watched as Vetch scrambled to his feet in response to the beckoning hand. The chatter began again as soon as Vetch cleared the doorframe, following Haraket, and his ears burned with embarrassment and resentment, imagining what they were saying about him. Making fun of his looks, his intelligence, his imagined habits. Comparing him to the brutes of the desert, the beasts of the fields.

  It doesn’t matter, he told himself, though in truth, it did. They were no better born than he! Tians were by no means morally or mentally superior to Altans! The Altans were the older race, and were dwelling in civilized surroundings when the Tians were grubbing latas roots with pointed sticks!

  But—“Don’t pay any attention to those idle lizards,” Haraket said dismissively. “There are three creatures here you have to please; Jouster Ari, mysel
f, and Kashet. No one else matters.”

  Easy for him to say, Vetch thought, recalling all the nasty tricks that used to be played on him by Khefti’s apprentices and the freeborn boys of the village. He was surely in for more of the same from this lot.

  But Haraket might have had the mind-reading power of a Clear-Sighted Priestess, for he seemed to pluck that thought right out of Vetch’s skull. “Freeborn, serf, or slave, a dragon boy is a dragon boy, and if they try any tricks with you, you come to me,” Haraket said, with some little force. “Remember what I said; your duty is your Jouster and Kashet, first to last. Anything, anything, that interferes with you doing that duty is an offense against your Jouster and his dragon, and believe me, boy, we take that very seriously. Beating is the least of what I’ll deal out to a troublemaker.”

  “What?” he blurted, so taken aback that he spoke the word aloud. And winced involuntarily, expecting a buffet for his insubordination.

  But Haraket didn’t cuff him. “You please me, your Jouster, and your dragon,” he repeated once again. “And that is all you need to concern yourself with. But don’t antagonize the brats,” Haraket added. “Have the proper attitude. They are freeborn, and you’re not.”

  “Yes, sir,” he murmured. That was more like what he’d expected to hear. . . .

  “But if you’re keeping your proper place, and they interfere with you, I’ll give them something to weep about,” Haraket said, and it sounded to Vetch as if a tinge of grim satisfaction colored the words. “They’ll be cherishing stripes for a week, if they harm you. But enough of that; you’d best be sure you’re pleasing me and Ari and Kashet,” Haraket continued. “And believe me, there’s a lot to do to please us.”