Joust dj-1

by Mercedes Lackey

  They ended up at the doorway arch leading to the Jouster's quarters. This was a very large opening, with the royal hawks carved into the limestone wall in bas-relief on either side, and a third hawk with wings spread wide carved over the lintel, all so incredibly painted he expected them to spring to life at any moment.

  Why not a dragon? he wondered. But this was not the time to ask. "Here," Haraket said, but not to Vetch, "This is Ari's new boy. His name is Vetch. Ari chose him himself."

  "So I've heard," replied the resplendent personage at the door. The person to whom Haraket was speaking was in every possible way the opposite of Haraket. Where Haraket was muscular, this man was thin as a reed; where Haraket was bald and apparently disdained the use of a head covering altogether, this man wore an elaborately braided and beaded wig—though truth to tell, beneath the wig, he was likely shaved bald as well. This was no coarse, horse-hair or linen-thread wig. This was a wig made of human hair, dark and lustrous, each tiny braid no thicker than the cords of a snare, and ending in a turquoise, gold, or carnelian bead. It made Vetch's head spin to think how much it must have cost— and this Overseer was wearing it as an everyday ornament!

  Haraket was brisk, but not entirely unfriendly; this fellow was haughty and cold. Haraket's clothing was simple; this man had an ornately pleated kilt of fine linen and a belt, armbands, and collar of faience and woven beads, as well as ornamented sandals. His collar featured the royal hawk with outstretched wings, rather than merely a faience ornament of the hawk's eye, and he clutched a gilded, carnelian-tipped wand of office as if he feared to permit it to leave his hand.

  The man looked down at Vetch with a thinly veiled sneer. "And this—is to tend to Jouster Ari."

  Haraket shrugged; he looked indifferent, but Vetch sensed an undercurrent of disdain and dislike—not for him, but aimed at the other man. He also had the feeling that Haraket understood this haughty fellow much better than the fellow understood Haraket.

  "He may surprise you; they tell me he's surprised everyone else today with how diligent a worker he is."

  "A serf?" the other man's eyebrow raised.

  Haraket made a noncommittal sound. "We all know how phenomenally lucky Ari is, maybe he's the kind that can look into the muck of a newly-flooded field and find the Gold of Honor."

  The other Overseer looked pained. Haraket ignored him, and tapped Vetch on the shoulder.

  "Vetch, this is Te-Velethat, the Overseer in charge of the Jousters' personal quarters. You do what he tells you, until he sends you back to me or I come to fetch you." Haraket still sounded indifferent, but Vetch read the warning in his words. Haraket had no power here; this was Te-Velethat's realm, not his. It was up to Vetch to keep himself out of trouble and satisfy the Overseer of the Jousters' quarters.

  Well, this was familiar territory. There was only one way to satisfy someone like Te-Velethat.

  Grovel and work. Grovel a very great deal, with such subservience that he might just as well offer his head to the Overseer's sandal, and work as hard as ever he had for Khefti. Well, he could do that. He had a great deal of practice at both by now.

  Vetch bowed, as low and as well as he possibly could, noticing as he did so that the skin of his back felt tight, but not sore. Whatever Haraket had rubbed on the whip cuts had worked a wonder!

  Te-Velethat sighed theatrically, but didn't seem displeased by the exaggerated display of subservience.

  Haraket took that as a signal to depart, and did so; he turned on his heel and stalked off as quickly as he could without it looking like a retreat. Vetch didn't blame him.

  But at least he knew exactly where he was with Te-Velethat. The man was probably a freed slave; he was certainly desperate that his status be noted and acknowledged by anyone he considered to be his inferior. And that was precisely how to get along with such a man; Te-Velethat was far less of an enigma to Vetch than Haraket and Jouster Ari were.

  In that, he was, thus far, a typical, arrogant Tian.

  Vetch hated him, of course.

  Vetch also knew better than to show that hatred. Like Khefti, the man would not hesitate to punish the least sign of insubordination. And Haraket would not defend Vetch in such a case, for the welfare of Kashet was not at stake here, and obeying this Overseer was. Though Haraket might dislike Te-Velethat, Vetch expected that he would certainly feel Te-Velethat was justified in punishing the rebellion of an Altan serf.

  So Vetch kept his eyes down and his hatred to himself. He reminded himself that all he had to do was obey orders, which would not, could not, be as onerous as the tasks Khefti routinely set him. When he'd served Khefti, he'd come to regard cleaning as almost a holiday. He would not be slaving in the hot sun at midday, and Te-Velethat could only claim his time until Kashet returned.

  The Overseer waved impatiently at him. "All right—boy. Come along." Te-Velethat might look an indolent sort, but he wasted no time; he turned abruptly and strode off with the fast, jerky pace of a stork in a hurry, and obviously expected Vetch to follow. Vetch did, running to keep up; he had the feeling that there was no way that he could appear to be too subservient.

  The plan of the Jousters' section of this maze was clear once they passed that doorway. It consisted of a series of courtyards, each centered by a pool for bathing or with ornamental fish and latas in it, with the Jousters' personal rooms arranged around the courtyards. Each courtyard was linked to the next by a covered hallway that pierced each room-ringed court like a needle so that the squares of courtyard and rooms lay along the hall like beads on a string. At this hour, evidently, all the quarters were deserted by their tenants, though there were several boys to be seen, busy cleaning rooms.

  The haughty fellow eventually stopped at one of the quietest of the courtyards. The pool here, although there were blue latas growing at one end, was clearly used both for swimming and as an ornament; the latas were planted in their own section, separated from the swimming portion of the pool by a raised wall just under the surface of the water, and the rest was tiled in white and green. A canvas shade had been stretched from one side of the courtyard to the other at one end, giving some relief from the heat of the sun. The courtyard was paved with stone, and there were small date palms, some bearing fruit, planted in enormous terracotta pots arranged at intervals around the central pool. There seemed to be four suites of rooms in this court. The Overseer stopped at the entrance to one of those suites, and looked down at Vetch as if expecting him to stand there like an idiot.

  Or, perhaps, waiting for an excuse to use the little whip that was fastened to the beaded belt at his side. That too-familiar smoldering in the pit of his belly warned Vetch; he must not give the Overseer an excuse, not only to beat him, but to dismiss him altogether.

  He was not anxious to lose a place where he was being fed as much as he could eat, he had clean clothing and baths, and there was no Khefti.

  Especially not over something as ridiculous as not being able to do a little cleaning properly.

  Khefti had been too miserly to hire many servants or purchase slaves, so Vetch had done just about every task in the household that didn't require special training. Including a great deal of cleaning.

  Vetch took a step or two inside the doorway, and let his eyes adjust to the gloom. This was a simple enough set of rooms; that was something of a surprise. Vetch would have expected a great deal more in the way of luxury, but there was nothing elaborate but the wall paintings, really. There were three rooms in a row across this side of the courtyard, with a small storage room to the left of the central one in which Vetch now stood, and what was probably the bedroom to the right. Only the outer wall facing the pool was faced with limestone; the rest was sensibly constructed of mud brick with a layer of thick sand-colored plaster covering the brickwork, leaving a smooth surface for the wall paintings. The walls themselves were as thick as Vetch's forearm, with horizontal slit-windows up near the ceiling. Every Tian house, other than the simplest mud-brick huts, had those, meant to provide mean
s for a cooling breeze to flow through, though at the moment, what was whining through them was the kamiseen.

  Te-Velethat waited, just as Haraket had waited, presumably to see if Vetch would act on his own initiative. Without being ordered, Vetch entered the main room and immediately began picking up discarded clothing, tidying away scrolls and rolls of reed paper, capping a bottle of ink left open—after all, that was what those other boys had been doing, in other rooms in this same complex. If Te-Velethat thought he was a stupid barbarian who had to be explicitly ordered what to do, he was going to be surprised.

  With a look of relief, the Overseer left him alone without another word to him, either of instruction or of warning. Now that, in its way, was something of a trap. Vetch had no doubt that Te-Velethat would be back to check on his work—and would also be looking sharp for anything missing that Vetch might have tried to steal. That was fine; the day Vetch couldn't manage a little simple cleaning was a day when crocodiles would turn to latas roots for their sustenance. And Te-Velethat could look in vain for signs that Vetch had stolen anything. Stealing from Ari, besides being just plain wrong, would also be stupid; Vetch would be willing to bet that the Jousters' property had plenty of precautionary curses on it, and anyone who stole anything of theirs would live just long enough to regret it.

  This was a curious set of rooms. Vetch was acquainted with farmhouse comfort, and Khefti's idea of luxury; this didn't match either of those models. With Te-Velethat out of the way, he spent a little time exploring it.

  Ari not only had his set of three rooms, on the other side of the bedroom, in what would be a corner room, he had a bathing room shared with another set of rooms. Presumably those rooms were just now empty, since when Vetch poked his nose curiously in there, he saw there were no personal possessions in them. The storeroom was just that; it contained chests, boxes and jars, two bolts of linen, rolls of paper, a few oddments, all on wooden shelves. The room that opened out into the courtyard held a charcoal brazier, a writing desk and a flat cushion to sit on, stools, a low table and chair beside it, a couch with another little table and an alabaster lamp, and a large chest of scrolls. The lamp was a simple, thin cup, meant to hold oil and a floating wick. Spare furnishings, to Vetch's mind, and the furnishings themselves were plain and virtually unornamented. The plastered walls, however, were covered with beautiful paintings; in the central room, these paintings featured scenes from court life. On the first wall, lithe little dancers wearing nothing more than jewelry; on the second, musicians, a harper, a woman with a drum, a flute player, and two girls with sistrums. A set of shaven-headed acrobats cavorted on the third, and a group of men with the hawk-eye amulets were lounging at a feast on the fourth. The paintings were life-sized and wonderfully done, in fine, clear colors.

  The sleeping chamber held Ari's bed and headrest, two chests that held clothing, an armor stand (now empty), a rack for the lances that gave the Jouster his title, and a rack that held both the short and the long bow, and quivers of arrows for each. The last was interesting, given what Vetch had learned today about why Jousters didn't use bows. Did Ari hunt? If so, what, and when?

  The bed was a simple, elegant frame with a woven lattice for maximum coolness; the headrest an elegant, but unadorned curve of wood. There was a table beside the bed with an oil lamp on it, another with a round mirror and a pot of kohl for lining the eyes as well as a razor. No Tian would do without kohl; it protected the eyes from the glare of the sun. There were some cushions and some good rugs on the floor, but not a great deal else. In the sleeping chamber, scenes of nature adorned the walls; the river, with blossoming reeds and lotas, horses racing across the desert, birds flying above a field—and on the wall most visible to the bed, a great dragon, wings spread. There was no doubt that the dragon was meant to be Kashet, for it had his coloring.

  These were paintings that, if Vetch was any judge, were worthy of a palace. Yet there were few other signs of luxury; in the main chamber, nothing much ornamental but that truly handsome alabaster lamp made in the shape of three lotas flowers, each of which would hold oil and a floating wick. In the bedchamber, only what Vetch had found, no jewelry chest, only another fine lamp. There wasn't even a board for hounds and hares, or the pebble game, which adorned nearly every other home Vetch had ever seen.

  It seemed strange to Vetch that one as exalted in rank as a Jouster should live in quarters that were furnished more simply than Khefti's—but at least that made it easier to clean them.

  He started with the bathing room; it was much like the one where Haraket had ordered him to strip down. Since mud brick would fare poorly around water, it was faced and floored with limestone, with jars of water and dippers, and on a limestone shelf, jars of soaps and oils, sponges. There was a bench upon which one could lie to be massaged by an attendant. Another shelf held folded piles of soft linen cloths, and two of those were crumpled on the floor. Vetch picked them up and set them outside the door.

  A Jouster also apparently had his choice of scented unguents when he was clean; there was quite a selection of clay and stone unguent jars lined up on another shelf above that massage bench, though truth to tell, most of them looked unopened.

  Well, if Ari chose to live simply, that just made it easier to take care of his things. Vetch got a broom from the storage closet and swept out the bathing room, for with the kamiseen blowing, there was sand in everything, and there was no point in doing more than to try to keep it under control. He then used one of the jars of water to wash down the floor for good measure. For a moment he wondered if he should use the water of the pool to refill the jars—but that seemed dubious. He thought he remembered a well nearby, in the passageway, in fact, so that it was handy to two of the courtyards, and sheltered from the sand-laden wind.

  He had recalled correctly, and went through the all-too-familiar ritual of hauling water. Only this time it was with a bucket that suited his size, and he only had to refill the bath jars and two smaller ones that held drinking water.

  Then he swept up the bedroom, collecting a discarded kilt and loincloth as he did so, and adding them to the pile of linen towels. The outer room was already tidied, so he swept it before turning his attention to the lamps, refilling their oil reservoirs from one of the jars in the storage room. As his last task, he went insect hunting, looking in every nook and cranny, under every bit of furniture, lifting every jar and chest, looking for the insects that often sought shelter there. Most especially he looked for scorpions, those deadly and silent desert creatures, which could hide almost anywhere. He finally found a little one in the bathing room, and smashed it with the butt of the broom before washing it down the drain with a cup of water.

  He was standing in the middle of the now-clean outer room with a bundle of Ari's soiled linen in his hands wondering what to do with it when Haraket came for him again. "Put those there," the overseer said, pointing to a basket just outside the door. "Someone collects dirty clothing and linen once a day to take it to the laundry women."

  He nodded; well, at least he wasn't going to be expected to do the laundry, too! "Is there anything else I should do?" he ventured diffidently. It would have choked him to have asked Te-Velethat for further instruction, but he trusted Haraket to tell him the truth.

  Haraket gave a brief inspection of his work, and shook his head. "Just what you've done, and this will be a part of your duties every day. The courtyard servants are all body servants; too lofty to clean. While Ari did without a dragon boy, they had to share out the cleaning, and let everyone know how they felt about such demeaning tasks." Haraket's tone of contempt spoke volumes about what he thought of those servants. "One thing to remember, though, there are a number of Jousters, including the other two on this court, who would rather see as little as possible of the boys; keep that in mind when you encounter one. Ari's not like that, but assume anyone else will be."

  So—even the oh-so-superior freeborn dragon boys were not as welcome to the Jousters as their attitude would have led
Vetch to believe! That was something to keep in mind, though not for the reason Haraket meant. Vetch ducked his head in answer, and followed Haraket out of the courtyard.

  "Kashet will be returning shortly, and that is when you will give him his evening sand bath and his supper," Haraket continued, shooing Vetch along with an impatient gesture. "After sundown your time is your own, but between dawn and dusk you'd best be prepared to hustle."

  It was a great deal of work, but it was also nothing nearly as hard as Khefti's assigned chores. And Khefti had him working from before dawn to after dusk, doing it all on less than half the food in; a day that Vetch had gotten at a single meal here. Thus far, Vetch had absolutely nothing to complain of.

  By the time they got to Kashet's pen, the dragon was already there; Ari just gave Haraket an exhausted nod in greeting, and dropped what remained of a lance on the ground as he left, presumably heading for his quarters.