Only when all of them were down, and the dragons’ wings were furled and the riders out of the saddles, did anyone emerge from the gate at the end of the training ground. And then, it was not someone, but an entire procession of people, headed by a very formidable-looking woman in a fine, if plain, wig and an equally fine, if plain, linen gown. No jewels adorned Aunt Re, but she didn’t need them to denote her authority. Her erect carriage, her challenging gaze, and her rather formidable prow of a nose marked her as someone to be reckoned with.
But she smiled as Aket-ten ran toward her and flung her arms around her neck, and gestured to some of her servants to extinguish the fire pots.
“Where is the wingleader?” she called.
“Stay,” he told Avatre, and approached Aket-ten’s aunt, giving her a bow of respect when he came within a few paces of her.
“Well done, boy,” she said warmly. “That was no easy journey.”
“It was the easiest part of what we are to do,” he said somberly, and she nodded in agreement.
“My people have brought meat for your dragons; do you wish to remain with them, or would you care to eat in the dining chamber?” she asked.
Kiron ran his hand through his hair, and made a rueful face. “I think we had rather eat in the dining chamber, but had better remain with our dragons,” he replied. “They’re going to be uneasy enough as it is, and they don’t like to be parted from us.”
He had halfway expected her to be offended, but to his surprise, she broke into an enormous smile. “Well said!” she exclaimed, clapping her hands together. “I like a man who thinks of his beast’s and servant’s comfort before his own! I raised my sons that way, and I cannot count the number of times one of them has declined a feast to sit with an ill or birthing animal, and rightly, too!” She turned to Aket-ten. “You’ve chosen well, niece, you may keep him.”
Kiron felt himself growing warm, and even though most of the fire pots had been extinguished, he saw Aket-ten blushing. No wonder Aunt Re had a reputation for being eccentric! And no wonder the Magi had not challenged her! He rather pitied them if they tried.
But she paid no attention to their reactions; instead, she turned to her servants and gestured, and they began bringing, first wheelbarrows full of meat, then the makings for sleeping pallets, while off to one side, a few more patiently stood, laden with platters of food.
The dragons, already exhausted, wolfed down their meat with weary determination to get as much into their bellies as they could before they had to lie down. Each of them chose a place to curl up on hard-packed earth that still held some of the sun’s warmth in it; most of them chose places close together, with only Avatre and Kashet choosing to be a little aloof. Interestingly, Aunt Re’s servants showed no fear of the dragons as they moved about, helping the equally weary riders spread pallets on the ground next to their beasts, then coming to offer them food from the platters.
And as Kiron made his selections, he felt as if the first part of their ordeal had been well-rewarded, for he hadn’t seen food like this since they had left Alta. Fresh fruit, dripping with juice, milk as well as beer to drink, cheese, duck, fish—oh, fish! He would have felt ashamed to help himself so greedily to the fish, except that he saw out of the corner of his eye that even elegant, aristocratic Gan was digging into the fish with the glee of a sweet-starved child and with as little regard for manners.
Aunt Re observed them all with a maternal smile on her face. “It does my heart good to see healthy boys enjoying food,” she said, ostensibly to Aket-ten, but loud enough for them all to hear. “The gods put good food on this earth for us to appreciate it, and it is blasphemous to do otherwise. And as you can see, I follow that creed!” Then she laughed, and patted her ample middle.
Aket-ten grinned around a mouthful of palm fruit. “Aunt Re, I don’t think any of us would disagree with you.”
“And which of these young men is the Queen-in-waiting’s Consort?” she asked, and not waiting for an answer, picked out Ari with her keen eyes. “Ah, there you are! Come here, boy, if you would.”
Ari wisely did as he was told, rising from his cross-legged position on the pallet spread next to Kashet (already dozing) and coming to stand before Aunt Re like a soldier about to be evaluated by his commander. She looked up at him with her arms crossed over her chest, and nodded.
“I like you, Tian,” she said. “You’ll do. It’s about time we got someone with some spine in his bloodline on a throne. You see to it that this nonsense is ended once and for all, and crush those vipers calling themselves Magi under your heel.”
And with that, she looked over the rest of them. “Get what sleep you can,” she said. “When the sun rises, and it gets too hot for humans, you can either move under the canopies I’ll have brought or come inside. My people will bring you more food for yourselves and your beasts; all you have to do is ask for it.”
She patted Ari’s arm. “Back to your dragon, before he misses you.”
And with that, she turned and led her procession of servants back out of the training ground, leaving behind a few lit torches, filled water jars and dippers, and the semichaotic sprawl of dragons and riders.
Aket-ten saw to Re-eth-ke—who, having been here before, had settled down as soon as she was stuffed full and now was sleeping blissfully—and flopped down beside Kiron.
“Why wasn’t that woman on one of the Twin Thrones?” he demanded, half laughing, half seriously.
“Because she didn’t want to be?” Aket-ten grinned. “Aunt Re, so far as I can tell, has never had any patience with what she calls ‘trivialities.’ That’s probably why the family put her out here in the first place. According to Father, it was a minor estate when she was sent here mostly to keep her from outraging anyone she talked to. She took over the management of it, made it into a very wealthy estate, married her Overseer, had six sons, and all of it without asking anyone’s permission. Father adores her.”
“You’d either adore her or hate her.” He nibbled his lip. “I think I adore her, too. Has she any magic?”
Aket-ten shook her head. “Not a bit. All of her Healing is done with herb and knife, and she’s very, very good. When her husband died, she just decided one day that she was going to learn Healing, brought in several Healers to teach her, and just—absorbed it all the way dry ground absorbs rain.”
“But why Healing?” he persisted.
“I don’t know. She only told me that no other man could ever fill her life the way We-ra-te did, so she wasn’t going to try to find another husband, that the estate was pretty much running itself and what little it needed ought to be her eldest son’s purview anyway, so she needed something that would fill her thoughts and her time, if not her life.” Aket-ten shrugged. “If you were going to ask me, I’d say it was probably something she’d wanted to do before she was sent here, and wasn’t allowed.”
“She’s a wonder,” Kiron said, looking at the gate through which she had exited.
“She’s every bit of that.” Aket-ten yawned. “Now I want to sleep. If that earthshake comes tomorrow, we’ll need all the rest we can get.”
Kiron nodded, looked around, and saw that pretty much everyone else had come to the same conclusion. Ari was already asleep, with his hand on Kashet’s foreleg. The others had curled up in various other positions of contact with their dragons, each taking comfort from the other in this strange place. Aket-ten bent and softly kissed his forehead before taking herself to her own pallet, and he found the most comfortable position for himself, with his back against Avatre’s belly.