As Shobek instructed him, he was relieved to find that there was not much that was going to be difficult about this job. His first job was to clean the saddles, using some concoction in a pottery jar, his second, to oil, and try and revive the elderly leather by rubbing in a compound of wax and tallow, with precious myrrh added to give it fragrance.
And it was myrrh that his nose had detected, though he hadn't recognized what it was at first, for its signature aroma had been mingled with the honey scent of wax and the heavy scent of the oil.
It wasn't the hardest task he had ever had, by any stretch of the imagination. And although at this point, the hottest part of the day, anyone who wasn't a servant was lying down in a cool room or trying to cool off by bathing in a pool, this wasn't a bad job. He was sitting down; he was in a cool, dim room. The thick mud-brick walls kept the heat out, and the stone floor cooled things further. There was a certain sensuous pleasure in working with the leather, watching it slowly revive under his attentions, the fragrant myrrh soothing his senses. He knew what myrrh was, of course; on feast days even Khefti would get a cone of perfume scented with it or some other fragrance and wear it all day on top of his coarse, braided horsehair wig. The Tians loved perfumes and unguents, and someone who did not bathe at least twice daily and who smelled of grease and sweat as Khefti did was regarded with unconcealed disdain. So on festival days, in the hopes of mingling with his betters, Khefti would bathe like a concubine and lavish as much myrrh on himself as he could afford. Not that it did much good. Not all the perfume cones in the world could cover up the rancid scent of Khefti-the-Fat…
There were other spices in the wax as well, though none as strong as the myrrh. Perhaps this was what gave the dragons their pleasant scent.
The saddles were not large or heavy, as Vetch already knew; nothing like the kind of bulky chair he would have envisioned for riding a dragon. Instead, they were a kind of thick pad of kapok-stuffed leather molded by time and use to the shape of a particular dragon's shoulders, with straps and braces, handholds, carry pads and harness straps firmly sewn onto them. The ones in his charge were very old and much abused; stiff and dried out, the pale brown leather cut up here and there, the harnesses snapped, the sinew stitching torn loose, the stuffing coming out in places. The other boys were doing the skilled work, that of replacing harness straps and restitching and patching. All he had to do was to untangle straps, which were generally stiff and dried hard, then remove as many of the broken ones as he could, and get the leather clean and supple again.
It wasn't easy work, cleaning these filthy saddles and harnesses, but compared to hauling water in the full sun and the kamiseen wind to nourish the tola, it was practically like having a holiday. For once, he wasn't concentrating on the curse on Khefti, nor on not spilling a bucket. He found himself half entranced while he worked, thinking of nothing at all, merely listening to the other dragon boys chatter softly to one another. Evidently, so long as they got their quota of mending done and didn't talk too loudly, their Overseer didn't care if they gabbled away.
But then, they were all freeborn. Freeborn boys obviously had fewer constraints on their behavior, even when working at a task, than serfs. There were limits on how much they could be punished, and for what infractions; freeborn boys could leave an apprenticeship if their parents agreed, so a Master had better not beat them more often than their fathers did if he wanted to keep them. The more difficult the job they were apprenticed to, the more freedom they tended to have, so given how difficult the dragons were to work with, the dragon boys probably got away with a great deal.
Of Khefti's apprentices, two were learning the skilled trade of the potter, the other four, the far-less-skilled task of the brick maker. The pottery apprentices lorded it over the other four, who got no relief even when Khefti took his daily nap. They had a canopy to work under; Khefti deemed that sufficient for their needs.
Vetch wondered, though, whether dragon boy counted as being an apprentice, or being a real job. Or were there degrees within the task—that you were the equivalent of an apprentice until you became an Overseer, or even a Jouster? There certainly weren't any dragon boys over the age of fifteen or sixteen, not if he was any judge of ages.
This lot ignored his presence altogether, which suited him. They spoke of other boys, of their families, of what they planned to do this evening when the dragons slept and their duties were over. !t astonished him, a little, to hear how very much they were allowed to do in their free time, for Khefti's apprentices were permitted to leave their Master's home only to go straight back to their own.
But the dragons didn't fly by night. Perhaps they couldn't. When the sun-god descended, and it grew cold, perhaps they slept. That would mean that there wasn't much in the way of duties for a dragon-boy after sundown.
Certainly all of them had plans to enjoy themselves. Some of them planned to bathe in certain pools in the complex, some to fish by moonlight, and a favored few, older, and who actually had real money to spend, intended to visit a wine house outside the complex.
Then some of the talk turned to certain dragons and Jousters, and the nobles of the King's court who had an interest in them.
"The next time Lord Seftu invites Kest-eman for a feast, I'm to come along," boasted one, to the apparent envy of his peers.
"Lord Seftu!" exclaimed a boy with who should not have adopted the shaved-head style, for it made his exceedingly round head look like a grape on a slender stem. "They say he has acrobats and dancers and musicians at all of his feasts! And river horse, and bustard and sturgeon and honeyed dates stuffed with nuts—
"And boating on his pleasure lake by moonlight," chimed in another, enviously. "And every guest has a serving maid of his own."
"He's been to every practice," the first boy said smugly. "And he's won a great deal of money on Besere, thanks to what I told him. He told Besere that he wants to reward both of us."
"On top of what he's given you already?" exclaimed the round-headed boy. "Shekabis, when we're done, can I touch you? Maybe some of that luck will rub off!"
Vetch learned massive amounts about the Jousters and their lives just by listening. The nobles, it seemed—some of them, anyway—found it entertaining to watch the jousting practices. They would wager on the Jousters as they practiced the skills that made them what they were, sometimes tipping the dragon boys for information on the health and temper of dragons and their riders. Now Vetch had at least one minor question answered. So that was where boys were getting their money!
And—as he stretched his ears shamelessly to listen—he soon found that wasn't the only way they got money to spend.
"Lady Heetah's getting desperate. She gave me a whole silver piece to carry a message to Ari this morning," one of the older boys said, with a sly grin for the others. Even Vetch knew what that meant. Ladies didn't ask boys to carry messages to men unless they were in the midst of (or wanted to instigate) a love affair. It sounded as if this Lady Heetah was in the latter position.
"And did you?" asked the round-headed boy, with a lift of his lip that suggested that Lady Heetah was throwing away good money on a hopeless cause.
"I left it in his rooms, when I went to clean Abat-nam's." The first boy shrugged. "Who's to say if he even looked at it? Or cared, if he saw it. She should have learned better by now; she sent me on a fool's errand, that one. But she pays well."