personal rooms arranged around the courtyards. Each courtyard was linked to the next by a covered hallway that pierced each room-ringed court like a needle so that the squares of courtyard and rooms lay along the hall like beads on a string. At this hour, evidently, all the quarters were deserted by their tenants, though there were several boys to be seen, busy cleaning rooms.
The haughty fellow eventually stopped at one of the quietest of the courtyards. The pool here, although there were blue latas growing at one end, was clearly used both for swimming and as an ornament; the latas were planted in their own section, separated from the swimming portion of the pool by a raised wall just under the surface of the water, and the rest was tiled in white and green. A canvas shade had been stretched from one side of the courtyard to the other at one end, giving some relief from the heat of the sun. The courtyard was paved with stone, and there were small date palms, some bearing fruit, planted in enormous terracotta pots arranged at intervals around the central pool. There seemed to be four suites of rooms in this court. The Overseer stopped at the entrance to one of those suites, and looked down at Vetch as if expecting him to stand there like an idiot.
Or, perhaps, waiting for an excuse to use the little whip that was fastened to the beaded belt at his side. That too-familiar smoldering in the pit of his belly warned Vetch; he must not give the Overseer an excuse, not only to beat him, but to dismiss him altogether.
He was not anxious to lose a place where he was being fed as much as he could eat, he had clean clothing and baths, and there was no Khefti.
Especially not over something as ridiculous as not being able to do a little cleaning properly.
Khefti had been too miserly to hire many servants or purchase slaves, so Vetch had done just about every task in the household that didn't require special training. Including a great deal of cleaning.
Vetch took a step or two inside the doorway, and let his eyes adjust to the gloom. This was a simple enough set of rooms; that was something of a surprise. Vetch would have expected a great deal more in the way of luxury, but there was nothing elaborate but the wall paintings, really. There were three rooms in a row across this side of the courtyard, with a small storage room to the left of the central one in which Vetch now stood, and what was probably the bedroom to the right. Only the outer wall facing the pool was faced with limestone; the rest was sensibly constructed of mud brick with a layer of thick sand-colored plaster covering the brickwork, leaving a smooth surface for the wall paintings. The walls themselves were as thick as Vetch's forearm, with horizontal slit-windows up near the ceiling. Every Tian house, other than the simplest mud-brick huts, had those, meant to provide means for a cooling breeze to flow through, though at the moment, what was whining through them was the kamiseen.
Te-Velethat waited, just as Haraket had waited, presumably to see if Vetch would act on his own initiative. Without being ordered, Vetch entered the main room and immediately began picking up discarded clothing, tidying away scrolls and rolls of reed paper, capping a bottle of ink left open—after all, that was what those other boys had been doing, in other rooms in this same complex. If Te-Velethat thought he was a stupid barbarian who had to be explicitly ordered what to do, he was going to be surprised.
With a look of relief, the Overseer left him alone without another word to him, either of instruction or of warning. Now that, in its way, was something of a trap. Vetch had no doubt that Te-Velethat would be back to check on his work—and would also be looking sharp for anything missing that Vetch might have tried to steal. That was fine; the day Vetch couldn't manage a little simple cleaning was a day when crocodiles would turn to latas roots for their sustenance. And Te-Velethat could look in vain for signs that Vetch had stolen anything. Stealing from Ari, besides being just plain wrong, would also be stupid; Vetch would be willing to bet that the Jousters' property had plenty of precautionary curses on it, and anyone who stole anything of theirs would live just long enough to regret it.
This was a curious set of rooms. Vetch was acquainted with farmhouse comfort, and Khefti's idea of luxury; this didn't match either of those models. With Te-Velethat out of the way, he spent a little time exploring it.
Ari not only had his set of three rooms, on the other side of the bedroom, in what would be a corner room, he had a bathing room shared with another set of rooms. Presumably those rooms were just now empty, since when Vetch poked his nose curiously in there, he saw there were no personal possessions in them. The storeroom was just that; it contained chests, boxes and jars, two bolts of linen, rolls of paper, a few oddments, all on wooden shelves. The room that opened out into the courtyard held a charcoal brazier, a writing desk and a flat cushion to sit on, stools, a low table and chair beside it, a couch with another little table and an alabaster lamp, and a large chest of scrolls. The lamp was a simple, thin cup, meant to hold oil and a floating wick. Spare furnishings, to Vetch's mind, and the furnishings themselves were plain and virtually unornamented. The plastered walls, however, were covered with beautiful paintings; in the central room, these paintings featured scenes from court life. On the first wall, lithe little dancers wearing nothing more than jewelry; on the second, musicians, a harper, a woman with a drum, a flute player, and two girls with sistrums. A set of shaven-headed acrobats cavorted on the third, and a group of men with the hawk-eye amulets were lounging at a feast on the fourth. The paintings were life-sized and wonderfully done, in fine, clear colors.
The sleeping chamber held Ari's bed and headrest, two chests that held clothing, an armor stand (now empty), a rack for the lances that gave the Jouster his title, and a rack that held both the short and the long bow, and quivers of arrows for each. The last was interesting, given what Vetch had learned today about why Jousters didn't use bows. Did Ari hunt? If so, what, and when?
The bed was a simple, elegant frame with a woven lattice for maximum coolness; the headrest an elegant, but unadorned curve of wood. There was a table beside the bed with an oil lamp on it, another with a round mirror and a pot of kohl for lining the eyes as well as a razor. No Tian would do without kohl; it protected the eyes from the glare of the sun. There were some cushions and some good rugs on the floor, but not a great deal else. In the sleeping chamber, scenes of nature adorned the walls; the river, with blossoming reeds and lotas, horses racing across the desert, birds flying above a field—and on the wall most visible to the bed, a great dragon, wings spread. There was no doubt that the dragon was meant to be Kashet, for it had his coloring.
These were paintings that, if Vetch was any judge, were worthy of a palace. Yet there were few other signs of luxury; in the main chamber, nothing much ornamental but that truly handsome alabaster lamp made in the shape of three lotas flowers, each of which would hold oil and a floating wick. In the bedchamber, only what Vetch had found, no jewelry chest, only another fine lamp. There wasn't even a board for hounds and hares, or the pebble
