'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.'
'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
