sharp, very direct gaze; those dark eyes seemed to look through everything. Ari's mouth thinned; it wasn't quite a frown, but it was clear to Vetch that he was not entirely happy.
When Ari had begun showing this—interest—in him, Vetch had been nervous. But Ari had never displayed anything but concern for his welfare—as if he felt responsible for Vetch in some way. Vetch still didn't understand it, and he still wasn't comfortable with the attention, but that was mostly because he just didn't like telling anyone as much about himself as Ari wanted to know. There was no reason for a Tian to want to know a serf's inner thoughts! Everything he had learned about the masters made him very nervous when they started probing. And even if Ari had never once been less than fair with him, it still made him nervous when it was Ari.
'You have no friends among them, and that disturbs me.' Now Ari frowned faintly. 'It isn't right; even I had a few friends when I was your age, and not just among the other scribes. You shouldn't be so alone.'
'I'm not alone. I have Kashet,' Vetch replied, trying to sound as if he was perfectly happy with the situation. 'I didn't have any friends when Khefti was my master, and his apprentices, the boys I had to work around, were always trying nasty tricks on me. It's much better here; no one dares do anything to me, especially after what happened to Khefti. Maybe they don't think I'm the proper rank to be allowed to be a dragon boy, but they can't do anything about that as long as Haraket is satisfied. And as long as you are.'
And really, he was happy, mostly. Contented, at least. He was getting enough to eat and plenty of sleep in a warm and quiet place, he was clothed well, he wasn't exhausted and cold all the time, and Ari was kind to him.
In fact, Ari was more than kind; he was learning from Ari, learning as Ari spent long hours talking to him about dragons, which was proving to be very important to him. For Vetch had conceived a passion for dragons that surprised even him. He liked them, even the dragons that were not as special as Kashet. Now and again, when their boys weren't around, he would poke his head into a pen and speak soothingly to one that was restless, or look one over to make sure it was getting properly fed. He felt a kind of proprietary interest in all of them. He had learned from Ari about every step in a dragon's development, from egg to full-grown dragon. He had learned a very great deal about Kashet specifically, which only helped him when it came to handling the great beast. And as for Kashet —well, no boy could have had a better creature to care for.
'You're sure?' Ari persisted. 'You're certain that you're happy here, even though the boys aren't being friendly with you.'
'Serfs,' Vetch said, with so much unexpected bitterness that it surprised even him when it came out, 'are not supposed to be happy.'
'Serfs are not supposed to be treated like chattel,' Ari said, with surprising gentleness. 'They are involuntary war captives, by no fault of their own. And to me, that means that, within the limit of what I can do, any serfs under my orders are supposed to be happy.'
Vetch bit back the things he might have said, because Ari deserved none of them. 'I haven't been happier than I am here since my father died,' he said instead.
'That is not precisely a recommendation,' the Jouster replied dryly.
'Well, then—I'm not likelier to get happier,' Vetch said firmly. But in a sudden burst of inspiration, he added, 'And all I have to do is think about Khefti on his knees, wailing like a baby over a stolen honey cake, to make me very happy.'
As he hoped, Ari laughed, and threw up his hands, acknowledging that Vetch had the right of it. 'Well enough. It's no bad thing to have true justice delivered to you by a magistrate with no interest in seeing you get it. If you are content, then I suppose I must keep my own opinions to myself.'
Then he left Vetch alone with his thoughts, which was a great relief to Vetch.
Over the past weeks, Ari had somehow managed to coax all of Vetch's life story from him—what there was of it, that is. It hadn't all come out at once; more in bits and pieces, the story of the day that the Tian soldiers came and the death of Kiron coming out last of all.
Perhaps it was easier because when Ari put questions to Vetch, instead of the other way around, it was in the evenings, when Ari came to bask in the heat of the sand wallow before going back to his rooms to sleep. It was always dark, there was usually rain coming down on the canvas awnings, drowning out the sounds from beyond the immediate vicinity of the pen. He would pet Kashet, who was like a great cat in the way he liked being scratched and caressed when he was feeling sleepy. There, in the darkness, Ari was hardly more than a shadow, and halfway across the pen; he never offered to approach Vetch or his sleeping pallet. It was Vetch who would come to sit next to the Jouster, if he chose. It was unreal, as if Vetch was talking to a ghost, or as if he was asleep and talking in a dream.
It was at those moments when Ari would say things that would leave Vetch wondering and thinking long after he had left. Sometimes it was news. Ari preferred to tell Vetch things that were bad news for any Altans before Vetch heard about them in a taunt from one of the other boys. That a tax collector had been murdered in some occupied village, and Altan men and boys had been crippled or even killed outright as the soldiers tried to find out who did it. That another village had been taken, had resisted, and been razed to the ground. That a well had been poisoned, and all of the villagers made to drink the water afterward, to ferret out the one who had done it by seeing who was too afraid to drink…
The Tian response to revolt was to try to make it too expensive for Altans under occupation to be willing to hazard it again. That the ploy wasn't working seemed to have escaped them utterly.
