that his neighbors envied. A harvest like this one would bring more than enough to pay for a rock-carved tomb in the Valley of Artisans, a tomb he could not otherwise have afforded, and for which his apprentices were making a veritable army of abshati servants and pottery funerary wares fit for a man far above Khefti's station. It also paid for all manner of luxuries: fine linen kilts, many jars of good date wine every day, melons, honey cakes, and roast duck on his table on a regular basis. Khefti even had a melon cooling in his well at this moment, a true luxury in the dry season.
Oh, melon…
Just the thought of a melon made Vetch's stomach cry out with hunger. He hadn't even tasted a melon rind in an age. Khefti thriftily had his cook pickle the rinds from his melons, in keeping with his parsimonious nature.
And that thought led down the well-worn path of food. Good bread and beer, melon and dates and pomegranate, honey and fish; all the things that Vetch had not tasted since he became a serf. For that matter, he had not had enough to fill his belly since the last of the great Temple Festivals at the beginning of the growing season, and that was only because it was the Temple of Hamun that provided the bounty. The raw latas roots Vetch had eaten this morning (in addition to his allotted stale loaf end) had helped with the never-ending hunger, but nothing would ever make it stop altogether.
From the moment Vetch had entered Khefti's service, he was always hungry; as the savory aromas from Khefti's kitchen tantalized his nose, he would be making a scanty meal of whatever Khefti allotted him. Breakfast, a palm-sized loaf of yesterday's dark barley bread (he could have eaten half a dozen of the same size), or supper, a tiny bowl of pottage his family wouldn't have fed to a pig and another little loaf of stale bread. Sometimes the fare was varied by the addition of an onion beginning to go bad. Lunch was whatever he could find, in the hour when Khefti slept—a handful of wild lettuce, latas roots grubbed out of the riverbank and eaten raw, wild onions so strong they made the eyes water. Sometimes he found wild duck eggs in season; sometimes there were berries or palm fruits, or dates fallen to the ground. Mostly, he got only what Khefti gave him. He hadn't seen cheese or meat or honey cakes since the farm was taken. He dreamed about food all the time, and there was never a moment when his stomach wasn't empty. He went to sleep, curled around his hunger, and woke with it gnawing at his spine.
The only thing that ever really competed with the hunger was anger.
And anger was as constant a companion as hunger. Not that he could do anything about his anger, but at least when he was angry, sometimes he'd get so worked up that he'd upset his stomach, and then the hunger would go away for a little.
And when he was angry, he could make the loneliness and the pain and the fear recede for a little. When he was angry, he wasn't on the verge of the tears that often threatened to overwhelm him. Sometimes, anger was the only defense he had— when the village boys plagued him and threw stones at him, when Khefti beat him. He couldn't strike back, but at least he could keep from weeping, giving them the satisfaction of knowing that they hurt him. Crying would make him into a greater target for torment than he already was; tears were a sign of weakness he couldn't afford.
But he was truly the most miserable of boys, and sometimes he thought that anger was the only possession he had that could not be taken from him.
And anger was, perhaps, the only thing that kept him alive, in the midst of a life hardly worth living.
He slept on a pile of reeds he had cut, under the same awning that sheltered the wood for the bread oven from rain, in the outer back court, beyond the kitchen court. His clothing was a loinwrap of whatever rags were deemed unsuitable even for household use, and only when it was little more than a collection of holes held together by dirt and threads like spider's silk was it ever replaced. Thus Khefti gave lip service to the provision of 'food and shelter' for his serf. Under Khefti, Vetch had nothing that was not scant, except for anger and hunger.
Well, one thing more, perhaps. He had hatred.
He hated Khefti with a despairing, dull hatred that was as constant as the anger and hunger and was surpassed only by the fear that Khefti inspired.
His stomach growled again, and grated painfully. Sweat prickled Vetch's scalp, and a drop of sweat trickled down his temple, down his face, and down his neck, leaving behind a trail of mud in the dust that coated him. But the hot, dry wind swiftly dried it before he could free a hand to wipe it away, adding one more itch to all of the insect bites and healing scratches he was always plagued with. His stomach pressed urgently against his backbone, and he was tired, so tired—even that anger that never left him was not enough to overcome how tired he was.
What had he done that the gods should treat him so?
How was it fair, that Khefti claimed him and could work him like a mangy donkey because he had bought the house and a thin strip of the land that had once belonged to Vetch's father? How was it right, that the Tian thieves had taken the farm that had been Vetch's home from those who had lived and worked it for generations? What justified what had been done to Vetch's family, to a man who had not so much as raised a hand in self-defense against the Tians?
Anger lived in his belly, waking and sleeping, but it was an impotent anger with nowhere to go. And at times like this, it was a weary anger that had worn itself out on the unyielding stone of his life.
A few steps more, and he made it to the side of the above-ground stone cistern. With a sigh of relief, he eased the bucket to the ground, and went up the two steps that allowed a little fellow like him to reach the cistern lid. He slid the wooden cover aside, pausing for just a second to savor the momentary breath of cool damp that escaped, then groped behind him for the bucket handle, ready to haul it up again.
