Alta

That’s all.”

The Jouster looked pained. “Lord Ya-tiren, you surely do not think—”

“A strange, bedraggled youngster appears out of nowhere with a dragon that acts like his puppy; he saves my daughter from a river horse, and all that we know of him is that his few possessions appear to be Tian?” Lord Ya-tiren replied pettishly. “And then you appear before he’s even been brought to my house? Well, what is anyone to think? Except that I do not want you people hauling him off to be ‘questioned’ as if he was a spy or a—well, I don’t know what. But he’s surely no older than my son, and I doubt he’s a spy. The last that I heard, the Tians were hardly so desperate that they needed to send boys northward to spy for them!”

Kiron decided that he liked Lord Ya-tiren; the man might not be altogether certain of who and what he was, but was willing to protect him from less delicate ways of finding out than simply asking—

“I am—I was—born Altan, and made a Tian serf and served as a dragon boy among the Jousters of Tia,” Kiron interrupted, taking tiny breaths often, to keep his chest from moving too much. “I suppose you could say I stole Avatre from them, except that without me, she’d never have hatched at all. The rest is a long story.” He eyed the strangers; the Healer looked resigned, Lord Ya-tiren interested, the girl fascinated, and the Jouster skeptical, but willing to be convinced. “If you want to hear it—”

The Healer sighed. “Send for the chairs you wanted, my lord. I can see that my patient will be allowed no rest until this ‘long story’ is told.”

So Kiron told his carefully edited tale, beginning from the time that his father’s land was taken—a little more judicious editing with those facts left them with no real idea how much, or how little, land had belonged to his family. Let them assume whatever they wished to, but if they assumed that the elder Kiron had been the holder of a large estate, well, it would do no harm to his cause. It was a cold fact that a man of wealth and noble blood would look with far more sympathy on someone of his own class than he would on someone far below him, but in a similar plight. Would Ari have been nearly so friendly to him, if Ari had been noble-born rather than common-born? While he would like to think “yes,” experience taught him otherwise.

He spoke bitterly of his father’s death, of the division of his family as a sop to the treaty agreements that meant that Tians could not own land they had taken outright without also “caring” for those to whom it had once belonged. He described his life as a serf under Khefti-the-Fat, and Lord Ya-tiren had the grace to wince more than once. He told of how Jouster Ari had plucked him from under Khefti’s nose—

And then went on at length about Ari and Kashet.

“We know this Jouster, too well,” said the Altan Jouster thoughtfully. “There were rumors that he had done something very different with his dragon—certainly the results he has are remarkable. Most said it was magic.”

“Not magic,” Kiron objected. “Just—wisdom, study, observation and a great deal of thought and care. And he made it clear that any man who was willing to do as he had done, and raise a dragon from the egg, would have the same result. Well, look!”

He pointed at Avatre, lying at her leisure, unbound, and calm as could be. “As he had done, I decided to do,” he continued, and described how he had purloined the egg from the mating of two Jousting dragons, incubated and hatched it, and raised Avatre to First Flight.

And edited again, making it seem that his escape had been planned, making no further mention of Ari, nor of the Bedu, except to claim he had traded with isolated clans, once or twice, for water-rights or food. He had to pause frequently for rest, and to let the muscles of his chest relax again; he suspected there were cracked ribs under those bandages. The sun had just about set by the time he finished, and servants had come bearing torches and lamps to illuminate the entire courtyard.

The Jouster sucked on his lower lip, consideringly. “It is a fantastic tale,” he said, judiciously. “And I would have said, fantasy tale, if this dragon’s own behavior were not just as fantastic.”

“She loves him, Lord Khumun,” the girl said simply, the first time she had spoken since she’d announced that Kiron was awake. “She loves this boy Kiron as if he was her nestmate. When have you ever heard of a dragon who loved her rider?”

And how does she know that? Kiron thought, startled. For the girl had spoken with the authority of someone who really knew what Avatre felt.

“Never. And that alone settles it, I think,” the Jouster said, and stood up. “Very well. My Lord, I leave this boy and his dragon in your care—though the Jousters will see that the dragon’s ration is brought every day—until he is well enough for me to return and enroll him. After that, his disposition will be up to you.”

Lord Ya-tiren bowed his head a little. “Thank you, Lord Khumun,” he replied.

“No tala!” Kiron interrupted, a stab of concern matching that of the pain in his chest lancing through him, as he realized why the Jousters would be providing food for Avatre. They would assume that she needed the calming, taming effects of the tala, and that was the very last thing she needed! “Avatre is to have no tala on her food! Please!”

“No tala.” The Jouster looked from Kiron to Avatre, who was now watching them all calmly, and shook his head. “Very well. I cannot argue with results. No tala. Has she eaten since I arrived?”

The girl giggled. “She told me she was hungry while the Healer was with this boy, and I took care of it, Jouster. I unharnessed her and wiped as much mud and dirt off her as I could manage to reach. She tells me she will want a morning feed, but wishes to sleep now.”

The Jouster shook his head again. “And she speaks to a Nestling-Priestess, as if she were a tame thing. No tala, then. I believe I can leave it all safely in your household, my Lord, and by your leave, I will report this to the House of Jousters and the Great Ones.”

The Lord Ya-tiren nodded, and the man rose, and took himself out of the courtyard.

“And you, Healer?” Lord Ya-tiren asked.

“I am satisfied, my Lord,” the Healer said, with a little smile. “This boy is stouter than I had judged. Call upon me if you wish, but I believe my services will not be needed anymore. If I, too, may go?”

The Lord Ya-Tiren nodded, and the Healer departed as well.

That left the girl and her father, who regarded Kiron benevolently. “Well, my young rescuer,” the lord said. “Do you think you could manage to eat something? Or is that a foolish question?”

Kiron’s stomach growled before he could answer, and the girl chuckled. Her father smiled.

“In that case, I will summon you a servant and a meal, and go about my duties. Aket-ten, I leave him in your hands. Do not overtire him, but I suspect that between you, there are several kilons of unanswered questions, and most of them are things that would not interest me. Goodnight, my children.” And with that, Lord Ya-tiren rose and followed in the wake of the Jouster and the Healer, leaving Kiron alone with the girl, who still sat like a little miniature oracle on her three-legged stool.

She had changed from her short tunic of the swamp into a robe very like those of the priestesses he was familiar with, although there were some differences.

There was no elaborate wig, for instance; she wore her own black hair cut short, like a helmet that framed her face and skimmed the nape of her neck. And the robe was not pleated tightly to her slim body; it hung loosely from her shoulders and was confined with a beaded belt. Around her neck was an enameled and beaded collar that depicted a flame with two wings, like the wings of the Haras-falcon.

“Um,” Kiron said, feeling tongue-tied. Then the one thing he really wanted to know just burst out of him. “How can you know about Avatre?”

“What she’s thinking, you mean?” the girl replied. “I’m a Nestling-Priestess; I have the Gifts. I mean, I will have the Gifts when I get older and more training and if they come to me, but I’ve always had the Gift of Silent Speech with animals. That’s how they knew I was going to be a Winged One when I grew up.”

He blinked. A Winged One? “You mean—you’re going to be a sea witch?” he blurted, then blushed. “I mean, that’s what they call—the Tians—”

She giggled again; she had a charming laugh, and he was relieved that she seemed to be the sort of girl who