Aket-ten slowed down and stopped at the gate of one of those houses, speaking briefly to the servant on guard there. By the time Kiron arrived, the servant had stepped aside, and Aket-ten waved him on to follow her.
Another servant escorted them into the house, Kiron acutely aware of his disheveled and filthy state. He hoped that the servant was not going to take them to the dining chamber—he was in no fit condition to be seen in such a place.
But as they passed through the antechamber, lined with benches for those who would be waiting on the Vizier’s attention, and painted with murals of the Vizier supervising the Queen’s household, receiving the Gold of Honor, and dictating to a small army of scribes, another servant appeared at a door, followed by the Vizier himself.
He was not someone that Kiron knew, but evidently Aket-ten did, for the man greeted her warmly.
“I know you would not have summoned me from my meal if this had not been urgent,” he said, with a wry smile. “You are not given to hysterics.”
“Actually, my lord, I don’t know what the situation is,” Aket-ten admitted. “But I do know that Kiron would not have flown all the way from Aerie himself if it was not a serious problem—”
Now she glanced at him, and there was something else in that glance that made him uneasy. Something personal.
Still nothing to be done about that. He saluted the Vizier. “My lord . . . while returning from an action against bandits, my wings discovered a body.”
He went on to describe everything that he could remember about the body and its disposition while the vizier listened carefully, arms folded over his chest. Torchlight flickering over the murals gave them a strange semblance of life, making it doubly odd to be talking to one Vizier while four more went about their business.
When he finished, the vizier nodded, face expressionless. Kiron’s heart sank. He had disturbed a very important man for nothing—
“This could be of no consequence,” the vizier said, and Kiron’s heart sank further. “But—we cannot take that chance. The gods may have placed a warning in our laps, and we ignore it at our peril. You acted properly in bringing this to me.”
Kiron felt a weight lifting from his shoulders. “Then I will leave it in the wise hands of Vizier Nef-kham-het,” he said. And he left it at that, bowing himself out, Aket-ten coming with him. He wanted to be sure Avatre had been properly tended, and he wanted a meal and a bath in that order.
However, he knew he wasn’t going to get any of those things soon when Aket-ten turned to him just outside the vizier’s gate and said somberly, “We need to talk. . . .”
SEVEN
“NOW?”he asked, wishing he dared walk on, but knowing—unless he wanted a quarrel—he had better stop where he was.
Ah, but he had forgotten one thing. Aket-ten was a Jouster as well as a young woman. She pursed her lips and shook her head.
“Not this moment. Go see to Avatre.” But she wasn’t about to let him off that easily. “Once you’re bathed, I’ll have one of the servants bring food to your room in the Dragon Courts. We can talk then.”
So he had a little respite anyway. He nodded, stifled a sigh, and tried to look something other than apprehensive. Then something struck him about what she had just said. And something that had been nagging him about the Dragon Courts occurred to him as well.
She had said she was going to have a servant bring food to his room. Now he usually stayed in one of the old Jousters’ quarters in the Dragon Court on the rare occasions when he turned up here, but . . .
But there had never been servants here. Why should there be? There was no one here. And he didn’t think that four self-sufficient young men here could justify installing servants again.
Could it?
Or was there something more going on?
Or was he just tired and overreacting to something that had no meaning?
He talked to her about little nothings as they walked together back to the dragon pens. How progress had just speeded up apace since the merchants had taken to being grateful . . . how he was even going to have a kitchen in his own dwelling before long . . . how some enterprising soul was planning to create some bathing and swimming pools . . . all of this to try and make her see just how much more livable Aerie was becoming, to tempt her back.
For her part, she responded with a neutral interest that would have been frustrating if he hadn’t been too tired to be frustrated by anything. Flying was hard work; not as hard as it was for the dragon, of course, but there were constant adjustments of weight, shifting balance, and accounting for wind resistance going on to make things easier for the dragon. A Jouster didn’t just sit there like a sack of sand. At least, a good Jouster didn’t just sit there like a sack of sand.
It was dark in the pens, but Hem-serit was waiting for him. “We gave her a quick sand scrub, fed her as much as she would eat, and she flopped down and went straight to sleep,” the courier said, anxious to assure Kiron that everything possible had been done to make Avatre happy.
“I’ll just check on her,” he replied, easing into the pen.
Had Avatre been hungry, anxious, or even just a little restless, her head would have been up the moment she heard his voice and footstep. Instead, all he heard was her steady, deep breathing. She was sleeping like a stone.
He dropped down into the hot sand and stroked her head anyway. She didn’t awaken. She had been well-tended and now she slept the sleep of the exhausted.
But then he raised his head, because he distinctly heard the mutterings and meepings of—baby dragons?
Aket-ten heard them, too, and suddenly her demeanor changed—he sensed it in the shift of her posture. Guilt?
Was this what her odd behavior had been all about?
“Why are there baby dragons here?” he asked, treading carefully. If she felt guilty about something, she would be angry, too. Whatever she was up to—
Then it struck him, what she must have done. It was the only reason he could think of that she might be feeling guilty. And why she had not so much as brought a single couriered message in too long. And why Ari would have asked for four Jousters to serve as couriers. Oh, blessed gods. She’s started her own—
“I have permission and the patronage of Great Queen Nofret,” Aket-ten said, head raised, her voice taking on an edge. She was already starting an argument that he had no intention of getting involved in; whatever was done was done, and there was no point in fighting over it.
“I never said—”
Well, he might not want an argument, but she clearly was determined to have one with or without his participation. “I got my own babies.” Now there was defiance in her voice, and challenge.
“I never said—”
Apparently, it did not matter what he did or did not say. She had the argument in her mouth, and she was going to get it all out. All that was required was his mere presence, it seemed. “And all but one of the new lady Jousters are priestesses with the gift of communing with animals!”
He gave up. She had marshaled her forces and was going to charge the battlefield. If there was no opposing force there, her chariots were going to run down warriors of air.
She went on at great length about how she was not depriving anyone of anything, not even a scrap of meat. How her little priestess-riders were so completely in communion with their charges and devoted to them that it made his young Jousters look as if they were neglecting their dragons. How Queen Nofret thought this was an excellent idea and that eventually all the Jousters flying courier duty could be replaced with the “Queen’s Wing.” These were, of course, all good points. They would do nothing to silence the mouths of those who would not approve of female Jousters; they would do nothing to still the anger of those who had been waiting to become Jousters and would see any dragon gotten by the women as one that “should” have gone to them. There might be some who would be quieted when the women began flying courier duty, but there would still be plenty who would say that the dragons were a costlier alternative to runners and chariot drivers doing the same duty. And there were probably other things she had not even considered and he had not thought of.