compound.
At least, the Altan gods were that way, and if anything, the Tians were even more bloody-minded.
Vetch shuddered, and pushed the thought from his mind, concentrating on the savor of every morsel. It was only priests that were sacrificed, anyway; slaves were deemed too lowly to please the gods, and serfs were the enemy, and who would send an important message via one's enemy?
The sky darkened, and someone went around the periphery of the court, lighting the rest of the lamps, while someone else pulled back the awning. Others came to sit at his table—servants within the complex, he thought, not other dragon boys. Some were probably serfs, but there was no way to tell which were and which were not, for slaves as well as serfs went with uncut hair and unshaven scalps. They didn't talk to him, but that could simply be because they were stuffing food into their mouths with evident enjoyment.
Then, when he thought he could not possibly be more satisfied, the serving girl plunked down another pottery platter in front of him.
Honey cakes.
Fresh-baked, crisp and flaky, with the honey glaze on their tops shining in the torchlight, the sweet aroma rose to his nostrils and tickled his appetite all over again. He fell to with a will, much to the open delight of the serving girl.
Finally, feeling as stuffed as a festival goose, he reluctantly got up from the table, the last of the dragon boys to leave, though servants were still coming in to eat.
But even then, he was in for one final surprise.
Just before he left the kitchen courtyard, that same serving girl intercepted him. She was not so much a girl, he noticed now; it was just that she didn't have that worn-out look that serf women and slaves got; he thought she might have been close to the age of his own mother.
'Here,' she said, pressing a package wrapped in a broad leaf of the kind fish were baked in into his hand. 'Take this with you. Little boys get hungry in the night, and you look three-quarters starved, anyway. We Altans have to stick together.'
So she was another Altan serf! He tried to give it back to her, alarmed at the thought that he might be getting her into trouble. 'I don't—' he began. 'You'll get—
But she laughed and closed both his hands around it. 'Ah, nothing of the sort!' she said cheerfully. 'Even if we didn't have so much food here that we give what's left to the beggars after every meal, you are a dragon boy, and Kashet's boy at that; I'd be in trouble if I didn't make certain you had plenty to eat, not for sending you off with something extra!' She turned him around and gave him a little shove. 'Off with you; I've work to do.'
So, clutching a packet that held more food in it than he got out of Khefti in three days—and that was by weight alone, no telling what was actually in the packet—he made his way back to Kashet's pen. When he thought about all the times he'd been unable to sleep because his belly was aching with hunger, or when he'd managed to get to sleep, only to have hunger pangs wake him in the middle of the night—well, he could hardly believe his luck.
Torches placed at intervals along the walls and at each intersection showed him the pictures on the walls clearly. He did get lost going back, but eventually he righted himself, and followed the pictures to the pens. The torches burned brightly, with the faint scent of incense to them, and not a great deal of smoke. The yellow light they gave off was clear and strong; the walls here were high enough that the kamiseen didn't blow them out, only made them waver and flicker now and again, as a gust or two got past the wind baffles. His eyes were light dazzled so that when he looked up, he couldn't make out the stars, though, which was what had led to his getting a little lost, for he couldn't tell east from west in this maze without seeing the sun or stars. Or the moon, but it was rising late tonight, and wouldn't even begin to peek up above the walls until after he found Kashet's pen. He could hear the sounds of the other boys chattering together somewhere. And for a moment, he felt a strange emptiness inside of him that no amount of bread could touch.
But then he turned the corner into Kashet's pen. He stood in the soft darkness for a moment, and let his eyes adjust to the dimmer light, for there were no torches in here. When he was able to make out details, he saw the pallet waiting for him beneath the awning that protected the saddle and harness. At that moment, all he could think of was sleep.
Tia was a desert land, and the desert was as cold by night as it was hot by day. Now the hot sands where Kashet rested were a source of comfort, a radiating warmth better than the wall Vetch used to sleep beside, for this warmth wouldn't fade before the night was half over. Vetch was happy enough to spread out on his pallet and settle down beside the lightly snoring dragon. The dragon was fast asleep in his wallow, and it didn't look as if Vetch could have awakened him if he'd tried. With no torches in here, once Vetch's eyes had gotten used to the darkness, he looked past the awning over his head to the stars.
In the darkness of his old sleeping place in Khefti's back kitchen, Vetch had spent many an unhappy night on his pile of reeds, shivering in his rags. This pallet was, he thought, made of a thick mattress of straw inside a covering of fleece, all of that covered with heavy linen. There were two blankets as well, and an Altan pillow rather than a Tian headrest. It felt strange to stretch out and not have scratchy straw sticking into him, or feel the stone through the straw. It felt as if he was stretched out on a cloud.
He carefully put his food packet near at hand, but inside an upturned bucket that he vermin-proofed with a brick to hold it down. Then he laid himself down on his pallet, warm, full, and trying to figure out what he had done
