When his hunger was finally sated, he looked around at the company. The torches around the courtyard itself and the little lamps placed on the rim of the latas pool cast a pleasing, warm light. He found himself approving of the girls as he examined them. Despite the giggles, none of them acted silly or too girlishly. All had done something equally sensible; they had cut their hair very short, right at chin level. All appeared to be Tian, with the darker skin tone than Altans had. That was a curious choice—but then again, there were not many Altans here in Mefis, so perhaps Aket-ten had no choice. . . .
None were wearing any jewelry fancier than a faience amulet on a leather thong or a string of faience beads. A glance at their hands told him they were no strangers to hard work. This was all very encouraging.
Finally, one of them got up, waved cheerfully to all of them, and left. At his curious glance, one of the other young women offered, “We have all the babies together in one pen, and we take it in turns to sleep with them through the night. That way everyone gets to sleep in a bed seven out of eight nights.”
He blinked. Why hadn’t he thought of that? It was the one complaint his young Jousters had about baby tending. Not everyone was as slavishly devoted to the welfare of a sleeping infant dragon that would not wake and would scarcely even stir all night long as he had been. . . .
Then again, they were with their babies all day long. He’d not had that luxury. He’d only had stolen moments with Avatre among all his other chores, and every moment he had been able to spend with her had been precious to him. So it rightly wouldn’t seem as urgent to any of them to be with their babies at night as long as someone was with the babies.
“It’s a good idea,” one of the boys said defensively. They all looked at him as if they expected him to object.
He sighed. When did everyone get the idea that he was a crocodile? “I never said it wasn’t,” he replied wearily. “In fact, I think it is a very good idea. Just because I spent my sleeping hours with Avatre when she was a baby, it doesn’t follow that it’s a sensible idea. Well, it was sensible for me, but only because I was afraid she might be discovered if I left her alone. That’s hardly anything any of you will ever need to worry about.”
Several of the girls exchanged speaking glances, and one of them said, with a lopsided grin, “I told you he couldn’t be the soul devourer that Aket-ten said he’d be.”
Oh. So this reputation was Aket-ten’s doing. . . .
“I devour neither souls nor babies,” he said firmly. “A good honey cake, though, stands no chance with me.” And to prove it, he boldly reached for the last and ate it in three bites.
Whatever motive Aket-ten had in darkening his reputation, now he was feeling rather annoyed with her. He then set about firmly countering the image by simply being pleasant. He supposed she must have warned them all that he was going to object to their presence, their mere existence, and probably be aggressive about it.
On the surface, there was very little to object to. The Queen’s Wing had the blessing and patronage of Nofret, and if the Great Queen preferred to have a wing of dragon couriers rather than a temple in her name, no one was going to dare say her nay. Aket-ten had found a way on her own to get baby dragons without depriving any of the men waiting for one—
Come to think of it, he was very curious about that, though, wondering just where and how she had gotten them. —and the Great Queen’s patronage ensured that the wing got support without taking anything from the existing Jousters. Aket-ten had found sensible young women who were not only capable of taking care of their dragons, but were actually better suited to the task than the young men, by virtue of their ability to understand animals and make themselves understood by them.
I must find young men who can do that. . . . Surely that particular ability was not confined to females.
As to whether or not they would actually work out as couriers, there was no saying. They probably wouldn’t have difficulty with the hard work, but the flying itself—not everyone took to it.
It looked as if she was finding them something they could do, that would actually free the male Jousters to counter the bandit threat. That could only be good for Aerie and the Jouster Wings there.
So really, there was overtly nothing to object to, and he wasn’t about to bring up.
Other than that . . . he was not stupid. It was fairly clear that the duties of training both dragons and girls were going to keep Aket-ten here. Which meant that the chances of his getting her to move back to Aerie were nonexistent. Maybe part of the reason she was angry was because she knew that.
Curses.
“Where and how did Aket-ten get nine dragons?” he asked into a lull in the conversation, going to great pains to sound interested and approving rather than accusatory.
“She scouted the nests,” said one, who had been very quiet until now, and had sat a little apart from the others. “When eggs were abandoned, she had them brought back here to hatch. That was where my dragon came from. And as for the rest, she continued to watch the nests, and had some of the old dragon-hunters come and take babies that had been abandoned, or the weakest of the nestlings when it was clear that one or more was not getting enough food to thrive.”
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.