exaggerated fashion, as he mouthed something, as if he was trying to tell Vetch something he didn't want to say aloud. Vetch narrowed his eyes, and tried to make it out.
One word.
Down.
Ah! Of course—he needed to demonstrate that he could command Kashet without chains and other devices. 'Kashet, down!' he ordered, and Kashet obeyed, ponderously dropping both fore-and hindquarters down onto the sandstone paving squares. Only then did Ari come forward to take his place on the opposite side of the dragon from Vetch, and Kashet curved his neck around and brought his head down for a well-deserved scratch from his beloved Jouster. His wet scales gleamed in the torchlight like an enormous pile of gemstones, and he shone in this opulent setting as beautifully as any exquisite jewel. If the magistrate was looking for evidence of a well-cared-for dragon, Kashet's appearance was certainly that.
'Well,' the magistrate said, his voice taking on a slight tinge of warmth, as his lips curved in the faintest of smiles. 'No collar, no chain, brought here all the way through the rain—this is the most remarkable dragon boy in the compound. He definitely serves the Great King far better in this position than any other.' He chewed on his lower lip for a moment, then seemed to make up his mind about something. 'In fact, I cannot see how he could be replaced. The Great King requires his services here.'
'No!' Khefti shouted, his face purple with rage, as he lost all control, seeing his property slipping through his fingers. 'No! He is mine, mine by right!' And he lunged toward Vetch, who reacted instantly out of long habit by cringing back against Kashet's side.
All of Kashet's languor vanished. He shot to his feet and spread his wings, cupping them over Vetch, then snapped out his neck parallel to the ground as far as it would go. He made one angry bite at the air in warning, and hissed at Khefti with the sound of water hitting white-hot stone.
Khefti yelped with sheer terror, and lurched backward as quickly as he'd lunged forward. Kashet didn't— quite—snap his jaws a second time at the swiftly-retreating brick maker, but it certainly looked as if he wanted to.
'Most interesting,' was all the magistrate said, as Ari slapped Kashet's neck to get his attention, and ordered him down again. Khefti remained where he was, warily out of reach.
'Magistrate!' the brick maker called desperately. 'It isn't just the land—property into which, I say again, I have invested all that I own, property which was to support me and mine in my honorable age, when I can no longer ply my lawful trade! This boy is— was—all I have to tend my tala field! I cannot tend it and attend to my apprentices at the same time! Where will the tala for the Great King's Jousters come from, if my field withers for lack of tending?'
'There are other fields,' Ari said, making his annoyance at Khefti's attempt to play at blackmail very evident. But a shaven-headed, white-kilted scribe who had been standing at the side of the dais, hidden in the shadows until now, came forward at that, and whispered in the magistrate's ear. The old man listened carefully, nodding—then smiled.
Smiled benevolently at Ari and Haraket—then turned the smile on Khefti. But when he did so, the smile was —less benevolent. Vetch might, if he'd been asked to describe it, call it 'vindictive.' And it came to him in that moment that the magistrate had taken more of a dislike to Khefti than Vetch could have ever thought possible, that he would not, would never, exceed the bounds of justice and the law, but when justice and the law handed him a means to deliver Khefti a blow, he was not above taking joy in the fact that it had done so.
'Of course we cannot allow a tala field to fail,' he said, in so smooth a voice that not even the finest cream could have been smoother. 'Nor can we deprive you of the investment you made to sustain you in your age. Not when there is a simple solution available to us.'
He stepped back a pace, and held up his little whip. 'Therefore, in the name of the Great King, I decree that there shall be a transfer of attachment. This serf is no longer bound to the house and land of his bloodline, and Khefti the brick maker now owns these properties outright, to do with as he pleases.'
Khefti was not given time to react to this, for the magistrate followed this pronouncement with another.
'And since he has declared he cannot sustain his tala field without the labor of the serf, in the name of the Great King, I bind this same serf boy to the tala field formerly owned by Khefti the brick maker, and take this property into the hands of the Great King's overseers, to be administered by them on behalf of the Great King and his Jousters.' The magistrate's smile widened as Khefti's cry of pleasure turned to a gasp of loss and dismay, and Vetch was reminded irresistibly of a crocodile…
A crocodile that has just swallowed a large and particularly tasty meal. 'The Great King has simple serfs in plenty to tend this field, and it will be efficient for the tala to come directly into the hands of the Great King rather than through an intermediary.'
Efficient? Hah! It means the tala will come to the Great King for nothing, save only the labor of a serf or slave! Vetch was dazzled by the beauty of it all; the scribe had surely told the magistrate that Khefti's tala field was—as simple property—worth less than the house and land stolen from Vetch's family. So Khefti could not even protest that he was being cheated—he now owned that house and garden, rather than merely holding them, a right which could have been revoked at any time. He could sell them at a profit, he could do anything with them that he chose. But the value of the tala that had come and would come in the future from that tiny field would far exceed that of the property now given to him, and Khefti very well knew it. There would be no more duck on Khefti's table, no more palm wine, no more little luxuries. And the Great King would have the yield of one more tala field without the need to pay for it.
