Aerie

willing to serve as dragon boys for the chance at an egg themselves one day! Or both—actually, preferably both. Then, ah then, they might have some time to themselves . . . some time to get together when there wasn’t something that needed to be talked about.

Soon, if the gods were only pleased to grant it. Well, at least Ari was not ungenerous about supplying them with funds. They could certainly hire people, if only they could find them.

He sighed.

“It’s the older Jousters,” he said carefully. Orest snorted.

“They’re spoiled,” Aket-ten’s brother said without preamble. “All they do is complain and talk about how much better it used to be. They had everything done for them in the old days, and they want that back.”

“And you don’t?” Kiron raised an eyebrow, and Orest had the grace to blush.

Old days, Kiron couldn’t help but be amused. The “old days” were mere moons ago.

“Well—” Orest began.

Huras, son of bakers who had lost everything when Alta’s capital and port were destroyed by the Magi- caused earthshakes, sighed. “We all do,” he admitted without a sign of embarrassment. “And maybe we’ll get all that back one of these days. I hope. And I don’t blame the older Jousters for wanting it either. My two—Well, I think they are doing pretty well, considering all they’re having to do and learn just to be Jousters again. Having to cope with the way things are now is hard on them. But—I’ll admit to you, I am getting tired of the complaints myself. It’s not as if we have extra workmen and dragon boys hidden away somewhere and are keeping them to ourselves, after all.”

There Huras, practical and level-headed as always, had struck the main point. They were all having to cope with a distinct lack of comfort. There were only one or two who had come from positions in life so low that the cave-houses were actually an improvement.

“Well,” Gan said, for once looking quite sober and serious, “I’ve thought about this a bit, and I’ve been keeping a bit of an eye on the old Jousters. No, they aren’t comfortable. No, they don’t fit in. Most of them are of much higher rank than the rest of us. All their lives they’ve had servants, and not just as Jousters. Our cave-houses really aren’t much better than holes dug in the cliffs.” Interesting to hear Gan saying this, ranking the situation into “we” and “them” and classing himself in the “we.” Interesting, because Gan was noble-born himself. And before he’d become a Jouster, he’d had a bit of a reputation for putting on airs. “They’re trying, they really are, but I wonder—I wonder if it wouldn’t be easier for them if they didn’t have to adjust to everything at once, and do it in the company of a lot of—ah—”

Here, he clearly ran out of words for a polite description of the motley collection of former slaves, former serfs, common-born, and noble youngsters that comprised the bulk of the new Jousters.

“A mixed lot, and most of us are quite young compared to them, and not well-born,” Kiron finished for him. “We are the sort of people who would have been their servants, and not their brothers-in-arms.”

Gan nodded.

“I’ve been thinking the same,” Kiron said frankly. “And it seems to me maybe they would be more comfortable in their own wing. Granted, that would mean a wing that’s pretty much comprised of former enemies, but—”

“Yes, but isn’t that what Ari and Nofret want? For Altans and Tians to start working together?” Gan replied with a shrug. “Anyway, they’re thrown together with former enemies as it is. Not much change for them there. It might be they’ll find more in common with each other than anyone thinks right now.”

Pe-atep, who had been yet another servant—the keeper of great hunting cats for a noble master—laughed. “At the very least, they will all of them have the same complaints about the ‘young upstarts.’ That ought to be a common bond.”

Kiron had to chuckle wryly. “Of course, I could be letting myself in for a lot of trouble,” he pointed out. “When you think about it, I’m putting all the people who would rather I wasn’t acting as leader of the Jousters in one wing.”

“Yes, but you’ll have all of them in one place then,” Orest pointed out. “With them scattered out across all the wings, there’s always a chance their grousing will have an effect on some of the new ones who look up to them. Tucked into their own wing, they can’t influence anyone but each other.”

“I also don’t want them to think I’m trying to exile them—”

Oset-re nodded, a knowing look on his handsome face. He was another well-born Jouster, and another who had matured in unexpected ways. He had been vain, and Kiron had not been sure he would last out the training at first. Now he was as steady as Huras. “They’re more likely to take advice from another noble. I can talk to them individually, find out if they would rather have their own wing, then let them finally come around to delegating me to ask you to transfer them into a wing together. And I’ll take them, if you like. I already have two of them, and they at least listen to me with respect because of my birth.” He sighed dramatically and stared with melancholy at his rather dull meal. “The gods know rank doesn’t get me anything else anymore.”

Orest snickered. Gan pouted with mock sympathy. “Oh, the tribulations we of noble blood must endure!”

Menet-ka, once so shy, flung a pillow at his head. He caught it adroitly. “Why, thank you, brother. This is exactly what I needed,” he said with a mocking bow as he tucked it under his rump. “How kind of you!”

Menet-ka made a rude gesture, and they all laughed. “Seriously, though, that is a good idea,” Kiron said, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand.

“Of course, it’s a good idea. It’s mine, isn’t it?” said Oset-re. “If you start shuffling them about, Kiron, they’ll resent it. If they think it’s their own idea, they’ll decide that ‘the whelp’ is finally learning to show some respect to his betters. Politics and people; it’s all politics and people. I’m not the expert Lord Ya-tiren is, but those are the circles I grew up in, and I do know something of what to expect from folk in those circles.”

Kiron spread his hands. “In that case, as you volunteered, I accept.” He sighed. “I didn’t really want this position anyway.”

“You’re the only one that isn’t a worse choice,” Huras said thoughtfully, in his deep voice. “I don’t mean to say that the others are not competent, or at least most of them are, but—”

“But we have a problem with some of them being truly unacceptable to the older Jousters,” Gan pointed out. “Haraket, for instance. You would think, seeing as he was the Overseer for the Dragon Courts, that they would think of him as one of them. But it doesn’t work that way. Overseers are people you hire so that you need not dirty your hands with trivial details. And Baken—he was a slave. Doubly unacceptable. The very few nobles that are not unacceptable to us because they don’t know a dragon from a doorpost are already integral members of Ari’s advisers and far too busy for anything else.”

“What a comfort, knowing that I am the least objectionable rather than the best qualified,” Kiron said dryly, and the others laughed. “I suppose that will have to do in lieu of approval. Though I would rather have Lord Ya-tiren or Haraket in charge here.”

And that was when another thing occurred to him. These were his friends. They were Aket-ten’s friends . . . who better to ask for advice about his quandary. Not the personal one, but the one that affected the Jousters.

“I have another problem,” he said, a bit forlornly, which made them all prick up their ears. “And it’s one that I can’t think of any kind of solution for. Aket-ten wants me to give eggs to—girls.”

“Why?” Orest asked, looking just a touch contemptuous. “A girl wouldn’t last ten days. Well, my sister and Nofret notwithstanding, I don’t think a girl could take all the hard work involved in raising a dragon from the egg —”

Gan and Huras rolled their eyes. Pe-atep snickered. Orest looked bewildered. “What?” he asked. “What?”

“If you ever in your life wish to have pleasurable company from a young lady, never voice that sort of opinion aloud again,” Huras said gravely.

Orest’s stunned expression made them all snicker. “I don’t understand—”

“Girls,” Huras said carefully, “become women. Women often become mothers, raising children, who are far more trouble and take much longer to mature than a hatchling dragon. You belittle that work at your peril, for all females are very well aware of this role from quite early in life.”

Orest still looked bewildered, and Huras just shrugged. Kiron sighed. His friend was unbelievably dense sometimes. Just because Orest’s mother had possessed a horde of servants to do all the unpleasant parts of child