Clever, and he hadn’t thought of that. He had just taken it for granted that out of a hatch it was likely that there would be failures and let it go at that. This made sense. Especially if he could find young men among his Jouster candidates who shared Aket-ten’s power . . . he could do the same.
He continued to ask the girls questions, not just about their dragons and how they were taking to life as young Jousters, but about their former lives as priestesses. He didn’t have to feign interest; he was interested, and he got the impression that his four young couriers were no little annoyed with him for taking all of the girls’ attention.
Well, let them be annoyed. He would be gone tomorrow, and they would have the young women all to themselves again. In fact, it was rather amusing to see which one of them got annoyed over which young lady. And which young lady cast a glance at which young man when he spoke to her. It wasn’t long before he had who was interested in whom fairly well sorted out.
This was going to make for some complicated times, especially as rivalries were definitely a potential. He was just as glad that he wasn’t going to be the one to have to deal with them.
Oh, yes. Hurt feelings, jealousy, broken hearts . . . let Aket-ten deal with that particular aspect of having female Jousters. True, he had not anticipated those problems either, but she was the one that had wanted females in the first place. He made a mental note that if Ari asked for any more couriers, to find a reason why he should not send them.
Not that he wanted his Jousters to do without female company! By no means!
But life was complicated enough with the possibility of quarrels over young women when those young women were not Jousters. The dreadful ramifications of having to sort out female Jousters fighting over males, and vice versa—add to that the sensitivity of the dragons themselves to the emotions of their riders—it made his head spin. He was beginning to understand why the old-style Jousters had been discouraged from anything but the most trivial of affairs and trysts with “flute girls.”
Let it all be on Aket-ten’s head.
Petty revenge, maybe, but she had made him out to be a monster of sorts, and then she had gone tearing off in a temper when he hadn’t said a word against her new Jousters.
But . . . he should have a word with his fellows, before he left. Something. Warn them about letting women get in the way of their duty or—
He’d think of something.
Actually, after a moment of listening and staring at the little flame of a lamp, he realized that he wasn’t thinking of anything. Well, a bath perhaps.
Should he tell them about the dead border guard?
Perhaps—no, not yet. It might be nothing. It still could turn out to be nothing. It might have been the tragic result of a private quarrel. There was simply no way to tell.
He realized after a moment that he had fallen silent while the others kept chattering on. All but one, that one girl that sat apart from the others.
Now that he had food in him, he wasn’t as tired as he had thought. And a bath was beginning to feel like a good idea. He excused himself and walked into the shadows, into the next courtyard, aiming for the rooms he generally used as his own when he overnighted here. There were no torches burning in this court, and only a single lamp in each of the rooms assigned to him, but he really didn’t need much light. As he had hoped, the bath jars were all full, everything he needed in readiness, a clean kilt and loinwrap laid out on the bed. Whatever Aket-ten thought of him, the servants knew their jobs, and were not letting him go unattended.
He felt much more human after a good bath, and not quite ready to go to sleep. But he also didn’t feel much like going back to the group he had just left. He stood in his own doorway for a moment, looking in the direction of the pens, wondering if he ought to go look in on Avatre, when a movement in the deep shadows beside the pool in this court made him start and bite back an exclamation.
And that in turn startled the person in the shadows who jumped and squeaked.
“It’s all right!” he said hastily. “Don’t be alarmed—”
As he said that, it occurred to him how much things had changed since the Magi were gone. A few moons ago, he would have gone into a defensive crouch, perhaps even called for help, certain that whoever was there was a spy set by the Magi, or one of the Magi themselves.
A breathless laugh answered him. “It is I who should be begging your pardon, Lord of the Jousters,” said the quiet young woman who had sat a little apart from the rest, apologetically. She got up and walked toward him, into the faint, warm glow of the lamp behind him. “I often come here when the chatter of the others goes on a little too long,” she added. “They are kind, and quite friendly, but they all come from the same circle, and they—” Now she hesitated. “I know that we are to think of ourselves as one Kingdom now, but I cannot help saying—they are Tian.”
Now that she had said more than a few words, he knew her accent. “And we are Altan,” he agreed. Even after all these many moons of working with the Tian Jousters . . . there was still that sense of “us” and “them.” He suspected it would take years, perhaps even tens of years, for that to leave them.
It was a very good thing that Ari was a patient man.
“And I am the daughter of a farmer, and they were priestesses,” she sighed. “I know that rank does not matter among Jousters, but . . . they speak of things of which I have no knowledge, of rituals and ceremonial things, of powers, and the people who have them. I only know how to bake bread and make beer.”
“And without someone to bake bread and make beer, those who serve the gods would quickly starve,” he pointed out, sitting down on the rim of the pool. “Besides, as you say, rank and origin have no meaning among Jousters. I am a farmer’s son myself. To tend the earth is an honorable profession. Please, sit and talk to me. I had as soon hear someone do other than flirt.”
“It is good to hear the accent of my home, even if I have no home to go to,” she said, then took a seat of her own. “It wasn’t the war, it was a flood. I think I may have been the only one left alive out of my village.”
He sighed. “If it was a flood, it was the war,” he said sadly. “The Magi of our own homeland caused those, sending terrible storms against the Tians to destroy their crops, to terrify the people, to keep the dragons grounded. The only problem was that the water all had to go somewhere, and it flooded Altan lands once it had done with the Tians.
“But—” she protested. “Did the Magi not realize this would happen?”
“The Magi did not care, so long as it served their purposes,” Kiron said wearily. “They aimed to rule both Alta and Tia, even if to do so meant leaving no more than half the people in either land alive. And I beg of you, ask someone else of this. Ask the other ladies; they are priestesses and no doubt know a great deal more than I. I only know that this was a war that could have ended long ago, which the Magi of Alta fostered, and they battened on it as a hyena feeds on corpses. Let us speak of other things. Let us speak of—your dragon.”
Kiron learned quite a bit about this new female Jouster as both spoke until they were tired enough to go to bed. He learned that her name was Peri-en-westet, that her young female dragon was the only one hatched here and that Peri had helped the egg to hatch just as he had helped Avatre. Peri described her gold-and-green beauty to him in such loving detail that he had to smile, hearing in her voice the same adoration he heard in every Jouster that ever raised an infant. She told him that she had named her dragon Sutema, which meant “reed,” because she was so slender and graceful. He very much doubted that any baby dragon could be described as graceful, but he was not going to tell her that,
He also learned something of her history, which proved to him that at least not all Tians were as vile to their serfs as his masters had been. In fact, they seemed to have been even moderately kind. Certainly Peri had not been made to starve as Kiron had, had had decent housing, and had even made some friends.
He also learned
something she had probably never told any of the priestesses; that her friends had no idea what she was doing nor that she was going to become a Jouster. They all thought that she had some position at the Dragon Courts—cook or cook’s helper. A servant such as she was would be required to live where she worked. And as the lowly ex-serf, she would seldom be allowed time of her own.
“But why?” he finally asked. “Wouldn’t your friends be proud of you?”
She shook her head. “My friend is always talking about how important it is to know your place and keep to it. She is scornful even of those who send sons to the temples to learn to be scribes or priests. She would think I was being presumptuous.”
He shook his head in disbelief at how anyone could be so rigid in their thinking. “Well, she’ll have to learn someday,” he pointed out. “Once the Queen’s Wing starts flying, there will be no way of hiding who the riders are.”
“I’ll find a way,” she replied; he heard the stubbornness in her voice and had to smile.
“I expect you will,” he said then. “I expect you will always find a way to do something you truly want, Peri.” He stood up and stretched. “And with that, it is time for me to sleep. Avatre and I have a long flight ahead of us tomorrow. I hope that the wind will be at our backs for it.”
“I hope so, too,” she replied softly as he returned to his rooms.
EIGHT
THE body told us nothing, and the ghost had fled. We will have words with you soon.
That was the ominous message from the priests at Sanctuary, a cryptic statement that was waiting for Kiron when he and Avatre landed at Aerie.
Avatre landed in the golden light of early sunset, with the wind at her back, a fortuitous bit of weather that meant she was a great deal less tired than she had been after the flight to Mefis. Haraket was waiting there for them and handed him the note as soon as he slid down from Avatre’s saddle. It took less than a glance to know that all it meant was that the priests did not like the look of this either.
He looked to Haraket who had delivered the information, unspoken questions in his eyes as they both unsaddled Avatre, then fed her with the meat Haraket had brought. The older man rubbed his shaved head, and shrugged. “Do not ask me what it means,” he said. “Other than the obvious. They can’t tell what happened, they don’t like it either, and I think you can expect a summons to Sanctuary within the next few days.”
Well, that drove all thoughts of Aket-ten and his irritation with her out of his mind entirely. The flight had been long, and he’d had plenty of time to brood over her unreasonable behavior during the course of it. What had happened to the good-tempered, sensible girl he’d known in Alta and Sanctuary? Had she become jealous that he was the leader of the Jousters now? If that was her problem, he would have been happy to let her have this so-called “honor.” It was one he could well do without.
Well, that was what he told himself in frustration, but there were layers and layers of truth there. Part of the truth was that none of the Jousters, not even his original wing, would have accepted her as Lord of the Jousters, when they only grudgingly accepted him. Part of it was that he thought he just might be doing a reasonable job with this—although he dreaded to think what it could be like when and if there were more Jousters than just the few they had. And part of it was that he did like it that people were no longer treating him as a nonentity, nor as a boy who couldn’t possibly cope with the responsibility.
The idea that she begrudged him this made him angry.
He’d managed to stew himself up into such a state of irritation that when he’d found a kill for Avatre on the way back, she attacked it with the savagery of a dragon that was starving. In helping her make the kill, he’d managed to work off most of his anger, and got rid of the rest in butchering the remains for Avatre to eat at her second pause on the way back.
Now, though, it was clear he was going to have other concerns.
“I wish they would be less cryptic,” he groaned.
“They’re priests. I think it is an unwritten law that they must be cryptic at all times,” Haraket replied with a half grin. “Let me help you get your girl fed and bedded down,” he added, with a glance at the setting sun. “Then we’ll get you fed. I envy you those meals in Mefis—”
And that reminded him of Aket-ten and her half-thought-out scheme, and he groaned again. “Oh,” he said bitterly. “You would not envy me if you knew what I found when I got there.”
He unburdened himself freely to Haraket who, he reckoned, would be the best person to advise him on whatever troubles love affairs might bring his Jousters.
“In the name of Re-Haket!” Haraket swore, when he heard what Aket-ten had been up to. “Now I know why I never took a wife. Women! If it is not one thing, it is another with them. They are more trouble than a cage full of apes, and not nearly as entertaining.”
He looked so disgusted that Kiron smothered an involuntary laugh, and he glared at Kiron “It is not amusing,” he growled. “You have not yet needed to separate two men gone so wool-headed over a stupid wench that they went at each other with knives. And that was a mere flute girl, some doe-eyed bit that would have found herself a richer patron within the moon. These—this Queen’s Wing—” he made of the name a curse, “—will be full of creatures that cannot be turned out when the sun disk rises. Bah!”
“The Queen’s Wing is in the old Jousters’ Courts in Mefis,” he pointed out mildly. “And we are here.”
“And we will stay here,” Haraket snorted. “I will not complain again about the lack of bathing rooms, or the food, or the heat, if these things all keep those confounded women out of Aerie!”
He found himself wishing that Aket-ten could be here to hear all this herself. It would do her a world of good. He had no doubt that Haraket had a hundred tales of the horror that conflict over a woman could bring into the lives of the Jousters, and he found himself nursing a feeling of grim satisfaction that Aket-ten had failed to investigate this side of her plan.
The cat woke him before dawn. It had been sleeping on his stomach when he went to sleep himself, but it must have left for a while because suddenly he woke all at once as his shoulder was hit from behind. He snapped out of dreams, flailing for a moment, before the sound of clawed feet scampering off made him curse and sit up.
And just as well, too. Mere moments after the cat had made him a landing platform, some youngster he didn’t recognize came stumbling up the stairs, oil lamp in hand, to wake him. Warm light splashed across the stone wall before him, while behind him, his shadow danced, elongated and distorted. “Jouster Kiron!” the boy called, peering into the darkness toward Kiron’s sleeping place. “Jouster Kiron! There is a Priest of Haras here to see you! The Blue People brought him!”
That was more than enough to bring him fully awake. “I am coming!” he called, fumbling for his clothing. “Go back and tell him I will be with him in a moment.”
“He is at the Temple of Haras,” the boy said, and now Kiron thought he recognized the youngster as one of the acolytes of that god. “I will tell him you are on the way.” He turned and fumbled his way down the stairs, taking the light with him and leaving Kiron kneeling on his bed, putting on his loinwrap by touch.
It was by no means the first time that Kiron had dressed or left his home in the dark, and for once the cat did not try to trip him on his way out. Feeling his way to the stairs and down them, he kept one hand on the wall as a guide as he passed through Avatre’s pen. Avatre hadn’t even been disturbed by the intruder; she was still soundly asleep in her warm sands and did not stir as he passed by.
As he stepped out into the canyon that was the “street” here in Aerie, he glanced about at the other dwellings carved into the cliff faces. None showed any light, and a cold wind off the desert made him shiver. Hard to believe in just half a day it would be so hot that anyone sensible would be inside, where the rock walls kept the heat at bay. Evidently what the priest had to say was for his ears alone, at le
ast for now.
Overhead, there was not yet a hint of dawn light, the stars all burned down, brilliant beads of electrum, from where they ornamented the Robe of the goddess Nofet, for whom Great Queen Nofret-te-en had been named. The moon was down already, leaving only Nofet’s Robe to give light.
But farther down the avenue, where the several “buildings” stood that had been taken as temples by those priests who had elected to leave the comforts of Mefis and what was left of Alta to establish a home for the gods, there was the warmth of lamp and torchlight reflecting off the carved rock. The temples tended to be illuminated all night long anyway. The work of the temples began early and ended late. For all that Kiron sometimes lamented the hard work of being a Jouster, the work of a priest was harder still.
He trod softly down the sand of the canyon floor, wondering yet again who it could have been that had carved this city out of living stone. The place was still something of a mystery, though they all knew now why it had been abandoned. In digging it out, they had decided that the wreckage had been wrought, not by the hand of time, but by one or several earthshakes very close together. They had found the places where several springs had been buried.
The water sources had been closed up so thoroughly that they must have been completely inaccessible right after the shakes. Although water was now available, it looked as if it had only lately been working its way to the surface.
Those, they had cleared enough that the water seeped up again, into holding pools created from cementing stones together and lining the inside with ceramic tiles, not as the old pools had been, carved out of the rock. In a place like Aerie or Sanctuary, in the heart of the desert, every drop of water was precious. One of the very first things anyone had done here, in fact, was to start securing all the possible sources of water. All the cisterns and cache basins at the tops of the cliffs had been repaired and made ready for any rain. Provisions had been made to keep and use every drop of water; if it was not suitable for drinking, it was saved and went for irrigation.
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