Tonight he would let Aket-ten and Orest enjoy being with their family again. Tonight was for celebration. Leave the work for tomorrow.
FOUR
“MY heart is glad for Aket-ten and Orest,” Menet-ka said, quietly joining Kiron as the latter slipped off to go back to the Jousters’ quarters, taking advantage of the crowd and the deepening darkness. “But I have no stomach for much celebration.”
Kiron glanced aside at him and they locked eyes for a moment The moon just coming up and the last of the twilight showed Menet-ka’s melancholy expression with painful clarity. “My own family is still in Alta, and not likely to escape any time soon,” Menet-ka elaborated quietly.
Kiron winced. Poor Menet-ka! Though the young Jouster had come a long way from the shy fellow who scarcely raised his voice above a polite murmur, he was still so good at concealing his feelings that Kiron hadn’t quite realized until this moment that Menet-ka was at least as lonely and concerned about his family as the more vocal Aket-ten and Orest. And here Kiron had been feeling sorry for himself, when everyone else in the wing with the exception of Ari was virtually in the same position as Menet-ka. Not everyone had the resources that Lord Ya-tiren had. How would Huras’ family manage to get enough money together to get the beasts they would need to bring them across the desert? Everything they had was tied up in their bakery, and if they tried to sell that, even if they could find a buyer, it would raise suspicions. The rest were scarcely in a better case, even those who had wealthy or noble families. First, how to persuade them that the son they likely thought had been killed when the dragons shook off the last effects of the tala was actually still alive? Then, how to convince them that it made more sense to flee into the desert and the unknown than remain under the heel of the Magi? The choice seemed very simple out here; back there, it meant leaving everything one had ever known, sometimes leaving a home that had been in the family for generations, leaving friends, a business, fortune, status . . . disposing of things that might have been in the family for generations, paring everything down to what could be carried away and going off into a completely unknown future. No matter how bad things got in Alta, at least you were home. For most people, abandoning everything they had or had fought to gain was not worth the possibilities on the other side of escape.
Huras eeled his way through the crowd to join them, then Gan, Pe-atep, and Kalen let the crowd follow Lord Ya-tiren and his caravan of refugees, and separated themselves by the simple expedient of standing still while the crowd moved off.
“Hu!” Gan said, scratching his head and looking after them. “I knew my lord was ranked, and highly so, but I never knew that household was so cursed big.” But his kohl-rimmed eyes were bright with interest as two of Lord Ya-tiren’s pretty servants looked back over their shoulders at him, whispered something to each other, and giggled. He didn’t see Oset-re behind him, making doe eyes at both of them.
“There’s more of it than he brought with him if you count all the people on all the estates he owns,” Menet-ka observed wistfully. “He just brought the people he couldn’t leave on his most remote estates, I suspect, and those the Magi would think to use as hostages.”
Kiron tried, for a moment, to think like one of the Magi, then like Lord Ya-tiren, to work out what the Lord might himself have done. “The Magi wouldn’t look at anyone without rank,” he said, after a moment. “So anyone like servants or slaves—less than an Overseer, say—is probably safe enough, even if they’re in my Lord’s household and kinship line. They don’t trust their servants or underlings with anything, so they wouldn’t think Lord Ya-tiren would either.”
“Speaking from personal experience, to those of a certain mind, anyone less than an Overseer is invisible,” Gan observed. “Simply not worth troubling your mind about.”
Oset-re nodded. “Scarcely more than a living abshati, if it comes down to it.”
Gan shrugged. “And if I were Lord Ya-tiren, I’d feel safe enough in leaving some of those behind so long as I got them out of Alta City. Out of sight, and out of immediate reach, is pretty much out of mind.”
“Something about the Magi is worth thinking about,” Menet-ka added after a moment. “They don’t travel outside the Third Ring. Ever. I’m not sure the remote estates really exist to them, except as an abstract concept. So . . . if we needed to, we might be able to use those estates to help funnel people out of the city, or to hide people on, because the Magi might not think to look there.”
They walked on in silence under a sky blossoming with stars. And something else odd occurred to Kiron in that moment. In Alta and in Mefis, both, people had been afraid of the night, afraid of the hungry ghosts that haunted it, the spirits of those who could not cross the Star Bridge into the afterlife. Sanctuary of all places should have been awash with haunts.
So why was it that no one feared to walk in the night here?
He was thinking about this so hard that when a voice came out of the dark, he nearly leaped out of his skin.
“It seems I am not the only one who is looking for a little peace.”
Gan recovered first. “Kaleth?” he said incredulously, peering into the shadows in the lee of their building.
“The same.” A long, lean shadow detached itself from the rest, and moved toward them, resolving into Kaleth. “It seems that there will be a celebration, and I dislike being the skeleton at the feast.” Kaleth approached them, slapping Kiron lightly on the back and Gan on the arm. “I thought I would come spend some time with my friends who I have seen far too little of lately. Besides, there is a slight difficulty in being the one who speaks for the gods. When people are sober, they look at you out of the corners of their eyes and are afraid to speak to you. And when the date wine has flowed too much, they suddenly wish you to trot out your trick, like a prize flute girl who can play while bent over backward.”
“Well, that’s one trick I can do without,” Gan said fervently. “Unless the gods are telling you how we are to feed all these new mouths.”
“Ah! I don’t need the gods for that. Come up on the roof and we’ll catch the evening wind, and I’ll tell you.” Kaleth sounded a lot more cheerful, and Kiron felt some of his own melancholy melting. They all went up onto the roof as he had suggested, and sprawled on the warm stone with him. Baked in the sun all day, though the temperature of the wind off the desert was dropping, the stone under them—and the sands of the dragon pen below—radiated heat, and would for the rest of the night. Down below, the sounds of the dragons dozing recalled nights that seemed a thousand years in the past, when they had gathered in one or another of the pens while the dragonets slept.
“We have water, which is the main thing,” Kaleth said, after a long silence. “Some of those folk that Ya-tiren brought with him are growers, and not the usual sorts of Altan swamp farmers either. These are the fellows that cultivated his city manor gardens. They know how to grow things in containers, with a trickle of irrigation. And in all that maze that the storm just uncovered is a manor where things were grown in just that way. But we won’t be growing food.”
“We won’t?” asked Gan.
Kiron found a wind-smoothed curve of stone that just fit his back, and tucked himself into it. Kaleth sounded more like his old self tonight than he had in a very long time.
“No. We’ll be growing things worth more than food—yes, even here, in the desert. Spices. Medicines.”
Oset-re laughed. “Ha! Now I know why Lord Ya-tiren was cosseting trees across the desert! Incense!”
“Exactly so,” Kaleth replied. “Incense, which is far more valuable than gold or turquoise. There are young incense-trees and seeds for spices and herbs in the packs Ya-tiren brought with him.” Kiron glanced over at Kaleth and saw that he was nodding. “There is no reason to try to grow what doesn’t suit this place, when with care, we can grow what does, and is worth so much that traders will bring us whole caravans of foodstuffs in exchange for what a single camel can carry away.”
“But th
at won’t be for another growing season, surely,” Huras protested mildly.
“True enough. But the gods do provide. And until we have that precious crop, they have provided.” Kiron could hear the smile in his voice. “The sandstorm also uncovered another treasure trove. It’s enough to feed us all for some time, even with our population doubled.”
“Well, that’s a relief. I was afraid we’d be out hunting from dawn to dusk.” Gan shook his head. “As it is, if we aren’t going to overhunt our territories, I think we’d better start ranging out a bit farther.”
“Ah, that brings up another thing. Who ranges to the east the farthest?” Kaleth asked.
“I do, I suppose,” Kiron volunteered. “Ari goes farthest to the south; we have the two oldest and biggest dragons, after all.”
“Then I want you to range farther than you already have, into the wadi country. There’s another abandoned city there that used to be allied with this one, and we’ll want to colonize it for the dragons and Jousters eventually.” Kiron didn’t ask how Kaleth knew that; after all, Kaleth had been the one who’d found Sanctuary.
“Well, what am I looking for?” he asked. “And can you give me some direction?”
“Only that you should follow the game into the wadis, and you’ll find it.” Kaleth sighed, and tilted his head back against the stone of the parapet that supported his back. “This business of being Winged is not as clear as any of us would like. In many ways, it is as if someone handed me a box of shards from several shattered jars. I can see a face I recognize here, the curve of an arm or a bit of a duck or a latas flower, and sometimes I can make out what the shape of the vase—that is, what the shape of the future will be, but unless one of the gods actually chooses to speak through me, or a moment that I have foreseen comes to pass and I can say something pertinent, often it is just images that I can put no real meaning to. Until, of course, something actually happens, but by then it’s a bit too late to do anything about it.”
No one seemed to have any good answer to that, so there was, for a moment, an uncomfortable silence. Kaleth himself broke it again.
“I would very much like to be able to see things afar, as others in the Temple of the Twins could, but that is not within my power either,” he admitted. “So I cannot do as I very much wish to, and see what is toward with any of your families. What I See—well, when it isn’t like a pile of shards, it is like looking at the Great Mother River at Flood, when she is full of silt and what she has swept away. Anything could be hidden beneath the surface; I can only see what the direction will be, what floats to the surface, and sometimes those things that influence the direction.”
Menet-ka let out his breath in a huge sigh. “Well. That is somewhat less than useful for us mere mortals! Next time you talk to the gods, tell them I am severely disappointed in their performance and planning!”
It was a moderately feeble joke, but good enough that they all laughed, which lightened the mood considerably.
And Kiron reflected after a moment that the fact that Kaleth had not “seen” anyone’s relations might actually be a good sign, because it meant that they were going to be quiet enough that they made no impact on the course of the future. Right now, where the Magi were concerned, it was best to be unnoticed.
A burst of laughter from the other side of Sanctuary made them all look up. “I am glad they are weary,” Kaleth said feelingly. “Dawn comes too soon, and an all-night celebration is not what I wish to be next to when it’s time to sleep.”
“Yes,” agreed Huras. “And I am glad that I will not be there when they realize life here is not as it was in Alta. There will be much wailing, I warrant. And bitter complaining.”
At least we all knew how to work, Kiron thought. Those who had come to Sanctuary first had no illusions about what the conditions were. In fact, their expectations had been lower than reality. No one had anticipated water in such abundance, which made a great deal of life much easier than it would otherwise have been. He closed his eyes and let the warmth of the stone bake into his back.
“At least Lord Ya-tiren brought servants with him,” Gan observed. “I cannot imagine the amount of complaining if some of the household learned they were to haul their own water and wash their own linen because there was no one here to do it for them.”
“I think that Lord Ya-tiren has sufficiently warned them,” Menet-ka countered. “It isn’t as if Lord Khumun hasn’t been able to get some information to him.
Kiron sighed and opened his eyes again. “It is hard to imagine what is going to come of all this,” he said, quietly. “With lives being upended. Those used to being served having to fend for themselves.”
“Well, Lord Ya-tiren will not need to be worried about that,” Gan pointed out. “He has brought enough people with him to ensure that his inner household will not be cooking their own food and washing their own linen—”
“Ah, and he did bring something else with him that you lot should be grateful for,” Kaleth replied slyly. “Females. Young women. Two thirds of his household is female, most are young, none are children, and half are unmarried.”
“And we are no longer in the army, to be subject to soldiers’ rules, and Gan cannot possibly monopolize all of them,” added Kiron. “So you may pursue young women to your hearts’ content. Or at least, as I am your wingleader, I should say that you may pursue them in the time you are not spending in hunting and caring for your dragon!”
Even as he said that, he wondered how much time he would be able to get with Aket-ten, now that her family was here and she was no longer needing to hide from the Magi. Surely she would want to spend most of her own free time with them.
Why was it that nothing in his life could ever be simple?
“Gan!” said Kalen instantly. “If you cause all of them to become enchanted with your handsome face, I will be very put out!”
Kiron glanced over at Kalen to see if he was joking, but couldn’t make out anything but a shadow among the shadows.
“By At-thera’s horns, aye, leave some for the rest of us!” exclaimed Pe-atep.
“He does have competition, you know,” Oset-re reminded them.
“Perhaps we ought to prevent him from venturing anywhere near until we have our chance,” Kalen suggested, in a tone that sounded as if he was entirely serious.
Surely not.
Quite taken aback, Gan evidently decided to put a gracious face on the matter. “I,” he announced, with a dignity that bordered on the ponderous, “have no intention of frittering my time away in pursuit of women. Or at least, no more than one or two women. We have a new home to create! That temple that was uncovered—it is to be our winter quarters, and what had been workshops are to become our dragon pens, and that will take much work. As you yourselves pointed out, we have no one to do it but ourselves. There is too much to do to waste our precious time on such nonsense.”
“Ehu!” cried Huras in mock alarm. “He’s demon possessed!”
“Or else the Magi stole him and left a changeling!” Kalen said with a shudder. “For surely that is not Gan!”
“Perhaps I should exorcise him,” Kaleth said slyly. “A long fast, and an ordeal might do the trick, or perhaps there is a more expedient solution. It is said that neither changelings nor demons can survive immersion in running water.”
“Attempt to duck me in the spring, and you will regret it,” Gan growled. “That, I do pledge you!”
“And you the one who cannot get enough bathing!” Pe-atep chuckled. “What is the difference between a cold bath and a ducking, I ask you?”
“A world of difference, I thank you.” Gan’s face was quite visible in the moonlight, and he was glowering.
No one made any move to get up, but they teased him unmercifully, at least until it looked as if the jests were about to get more irritating than amusing.
Kiron refrained from joining in, and for the most part, so did Kaleth. After all this time together, they all had a fairly good sense of how far
they could go with each other, and a distinct aversion to stepping over that line, though they could, and would (and tonight, did) go right up to the very brink of it.
The great irony of it all was that in this case, the others were far more likely of success than Gan was. Most of the young women that Lord Ya-tiren had brought with his household would be common-born, servants and laborers and the like, and with them, Gan’s noble blood and handsome face were likely to count against him. It had been Kiron’s experience—limited though it might be—that young women who were not born into wealth and privilege tended to be suspicious of men who were. And when wealth and high birth were combined with good looks, that only made them doubly suspicious that, whatever the man in question said, what he actually intended was to have his joy and wander on to the next conquest. Whereas for someone nearer in rank, philandering came with attendant high costs . . . and not just social costs, for if the girl in question had brothers, those costs could swiftly become both physical and painful.
In fact, those few young women who were of anything approximating Gan’s social rank probably already knew him, knew of his reputation of old, and might well be as uninterested in him as their lesser-born sisters.
No, in fact, Pe-atep, Huras, and Kalen were all more likely to have success among Lord Ya-tiren’s household than Gan, and Menet-ka be more likely to succeed with young ladies of rank. As for Oset-re—he might well prove Gan’s equal now.
But Gan probably hadn’t realized this, and it was pretty certain that it wouldn’t occur to the others either. Kiron didn’t intend to point it out. For one thing, it wasn’t too likely that any of them would believe him, and for another, it was pretty amusing to see Gan stew a little.
“Peace, enough,” Gan said finally. “Women and cats will do as they please, and there is no predicting either of them. Except that I would advise any of you who wish success to sacrifice to Pashet on the morrow, and leave me be. She is like to contribute more to your benefit than anything I could do.”
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