"Besotted." The second shook his head. "Stupid women. As well court the image of Ta-Roketh in the Temple of Kernak as Ari. Actually, you'd be better off courting the statue. You might get a miracle and the image might fill with the god and respond to your invitation."
"That's what Lesoth says," another of the older boys nodded wisely. "Ari's never paid attention to court ladies. Oh, he likes his women, well enough—he's never even looked at a pretty boy— but the court ladies haven't a chance with him. Paid night blossoms, yes; Ari is like any other man with them."
One who had been silent until then rolled his eyes. "Like any other man? Like a Bull of Hamun, you mean! Lesoth says that Ari's got a mighty reputation in Seles-teri's wine shop! The dancing girls there all know him well!"
The others laughed knowingly, and Vetch gathered from that comment that "Seles-teri's wine shop" was one of those where the dancing girls performed horizontally as well as vertically.
"But ladies," the boy continued, shaking his head. "Ladies might as well throw their silver down a well as waste it on paying us to take love poems to Ari. Married or not, it doesn't matter. He won't so much as look at them, no matter how they fling themselves at him."
"So they might as well give their silver to us as not," a third put in, impudently. "It doesn't hurt Ari, and a foolish woman can't hold onto money anyway. I'll carry love poems for them, aye, and even put them in his bed!"
A fourth snorted. "No more chance of that with the new boy around. It's him who'll get the silver now."
But the second shook his head. "Na, na, the silver will stay in their purses, worse luck. You know they won't trouble to bribe a serf, they'll just order him to do what they want. Not that it'll make any difference. Four years, I've served Jouster Kelandek, and he says that Ari's the smartest of the whole pack of Jousters. That Ari prefers paid women, because he can send them off when his pleasures are over, and no jealousies and weeping, after, and that if he had any sense, he'd follow Ari's example, instead of getting entangled with spoiled cats."
They seemed to have forgotten Vetch's presence entirely—or else, because he was a serf, they paid no more heed to him than if he'd been a piece of furniture. Which was fine by Vetch. The more he could overhear about his new master, the better.
And the boys continued on in that vein, each one with another tidbit or two, about the ladies who had tried to attract Ari's attentions, about the dancing girls and pleasure women (the higher-class ones, called "night blossoms") that Ari had brought back to his rooms after an evening spent outside the compound or when a troupe was sent in by the Great King or the Vizier to entertain the Jousters as a reward. It was very soon apparent to Vetch, though, that despite all the innuendoes and sly hints, the other dragon boys knew little more about what happened in Ari's quarters then than did the ladies who sought in vain for the Jouster's favors. There was much speculation and very little substance in what they said.
It was also quite clear that this—the carrying of messages from ladies who sought the company of a Jouster—was the easiest source of some, if not all, of the dragon boys' ready money. The messages were clandestine, of course. Those ladies that were married needed to take care that their lords and husbands didn't find out that they fancied a Jouster. Those that were concubines needed to be nearly as careful, for though they might not have the position of wife, their lords would take it very much amiss to discover they were offering those favors to another which should have been reserved to their lord and master. Only the unmarried and unmated ladies could distribute their favors freely, and even then, care had to be taken that a jealous suitor or wrathful father did not get wind of a romance. The Jousters were a class apart, but that didn't mean that parents of rank wanted a love affair going on with one. Jousters had no real wealth of their own unless it came to them from their fathers, no land, no property, nothing of substance to offer a wife and her family in the way of an alliance. Everything they enjoyed was provided by the King, and came back to the King if they died. They might, if they were notable fighters, survive long enough to get the Gold of Favor as well as the Gold of Honor, and perhaps be ennobled and be given a house and land. But given the nature of the way that they fought, defeat was usually fatal, and few lived to retire with honor.
All this, Vetch had already known; the Jousters were famous across the length and breadth of Tia, and if they weren't individually public heroes, lionized and lauded whenever they set foot outside the compound, it was because the Great King wished them to be thought of as his personal force, much like the King's Regiment, not as individuals. In the rigid hierarchy of Tian society, the Jousters were unique and occupied a niche that was only just short of ennobilization, had many of the material privileges of being noble, yet were utterly dependent on the King for those privileges.
It slowly dawned on Vetch that the Jousters were, in their way, no freer than he was. If he was tied to a piece of land, they were tied to the dragons. They could serve only the Great King, and all that they had, they owed to him. They actually owned very little, for most of what they had was also the Great King's. And if they lived in great luxury, well, they paid for that in the risking of their lives every day.
As the others nattered on, Vetch gleaned some idea of just what that meant.
A lucky shot from below, or a particularly skilled marksman could bring a rider down. When dragons ventured too near the ground, they could be hurt, and when injured, not all the tala in the world would control them—and usually the first thing to go was the saddle and rider. Riders simply fell from the backs of their dragons all the time; sometimes in combat with the Jousters of Alta, but just as often in simple practice. The dragons did not always cooperate with their riders; sometimes riders were thrown, and sometimes there were midair collisions, in the course of which a Jouster could be thrown from his saddle.
He gathered that there were nets of some sort intended to catch a downed Jouster if he fell in practice, but sometimes the accidents happened when the Jousters weren't over the nets.
And of course, there were the clashes with the Jousters of Alta, as each rider attempted to deliberately unseat the other with his lance.
"Is Lesoth still trying to find a way to use a bow?" asked the round-headed boy.
"No. He gave that up yesterday when he finally got tired of Nem-teth snapping at his arrows when he loosed them," the other answered. "Jouster Ari finally took him aside and warned him that he could choose between Nem-teth catching all of his arrows, or breaking Nem-teth of catching all arrows."
"Ouch." The round-headed boy winced. "That would be bad."
"Believe it," the boy nodded. "As it is, it takes a lucky shot to hit a Jouster. If his dragon stopped snapping at arrows, though— He made a strangling noise, evidently intending to convey— quietly—the desired effect.
So—that was why they didn't try to use bows themselves, and why they weren't being shot out of the sky on a regular basis!
He was learning an awful lot just by sitting here, cleaning leather.
Thinking it over, it seemed as if a lance was the only really practical weapon since a bow was out of the question. A club— well, you couldn't get close enough to use a club. You couldn't throw a spear, not with the dragon's wings flailing away on either side of you. A sling—well, that took a lot of skill. A sword presented the same problems as a club. Which left the lance…